


Such a vicious need

by vhis



Category: Black Dagger Brotherhood - J. R. Ward
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, If You Can Believe it, M/M, POV Second Person, Pining, Sexual Content, V with a baby, V's POV, Vampires, this is 35000 words of fuck i want their hea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2953805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vhis/pseuds/vhis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU set 50 years after the events in book 9.<br/>Vishous wants his cop. Still. Badly. He decides to take him, because he's Vishous and he fucking can.<br/>He gets more than he expected.<br/>This will have angst and death and hard core longing. But also the happy end they deserve together.<br/>So yeah...here's a fix of Vishous and Butch and tell me what you think. Or point me to your own fic, cause I'll never get enough of these two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_See you @ home my man_

You delete the text with what you know it’s uncalled for viciousness. The fucker leaves burn marks in your pocket. Halfway through your second bottle of Goose, you ride on two neurons and still manage to hack your way into the phones insides and restore the deleted sentence. It lights up the screen in cold white and blue and you refuse to let it close. It’s….NO, you refuse to call it by its name.

*

Butch has the power, the inconceivable bliss to remain the same. Stubborn like a mule, hard as the engine block of your Escalade, sharp and perceptive and yet…Butch is Butch. You refuse to call him _your cop._ You reject the pronoun, you hide the possessiveness. You do your part within the Brotherhood. Crack codes, reinvent dead old languages, wire houses, mansions and insanely lavish cribs up in the smog filled skies of the city. You stay far away from your own penthouse. Like it’s infested. Like it’s an aquarium filled with lesser blood. You know, of course, that it’s not.

You know it to be empty. Well, as empty as it can be with your semen there on the floor, on your table, on the bed. Hers too. Spots of salted dry tears. From all of you. You never cleaned up. But you can’t go back. It would make you acknowledge the unconceivable.

That after 50 years, you find the emptiness all too familiar. Again.

*

Sharing the Pit with 3 is becoming unbearable. You wake up to the sounds of sex; they permeate your mind and veins. After a while, you’re unable to say if it comes from your own room, your conjugal bed…or theirs. You see it just as clearly. You linger on marks on Jane’s body that come from you. You see marks on yours that she never questions. You start to hate her for it.

Butch meets you in the middle of the day by the fridge with the same serene, stupid look, satisfied grin and bonded fragrance.

He gets some ice. You suck on a bottle. He gives you the hairy eye. You give him the middle finger. So much better than words, right? Other thoughts in the house make their way to you. You try and try to home in on them instead of him. But he laughs and heads back to Marissa, a spring in his step.

You crawl to the bathroom and try not to vomit.

*

You start to dream about it. About the beginning. Simple, small things, like you giving him your Red Sox cap. You don’t feel much in those dreams. Just the tips of his fingers, the vein in his wrist. Your voice, spread as a cacophony of vowels thick with meaning he never gets, or never shows you he gets. He’s not even a few vampire months old. You tell him to _be careful tonight cop,_ and he sends you to _fuck off V, I’m not a child._

And really, you don’t feel much in these dreams, but you think. You can’t stop your fucking mind as it thinks _in this game cop, you are a child, a newborn, I delivered you into this world myself._

And when you wake up and Jane is there, peacefully sleeping, you thank yourself and not the gods that you woke up before you could think it. Before it made your tongue curl and twist to form the words, and pervert you yet again.

The dream didn’t last as long, but then again, your mind still works, it never shuts down and you rush to the bathroom and bite on your tongue hard and shout around your hard gloved fist. You shut up. You climb back in bed. You fuck her. Hard.

*

Butch sometimes stands there on the couch. You’re so attuned to him you follow. He waits for you every time. _Nightmare?_ is what you say, like an idiot. But it’s your part and you play it, just to lull him to calm again. To sleep, to her. Sometimes you thought about doing something other than asking that idiotic question to make him come through. At first it involved foosball, then Tivoed games, or rap. You even spent a week in the Safe House with Jane and away from him and the Pit. You thought it was not his nightmare, but your vision coming to him in his sleep, to torment him.

He was on your door step the third night. You come back to the Pit after that. You never leave again. You come back to the couch when it happens. You ask _Nightmare?_

You stop wanting to change this routine when punches come into mind, and bites and your blood in him. Over the years, you stop thinking altogether. You just sit there.

_Nightmare?_

_Same one V. The same one._

And you come to hate repetitions. Vicious circles, like sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up. Like fight, clean, fight, clean. And most of all, the mother of all cocksucking repetitions: sane V, insane V, sane V, fucked up V.

Butch has the same nightmare. You know it; it’s projected on your brain map, since the beginning. Butch is a baby in the arms of his MIA vampire father. Butch is full of blood. His father’s lips are covered in angry red marks. Like from a kill, like from a sin. And then, in an instant, the father is you. Looking down at Butch. Cradling him, smothering him. And you shine. And Butch is terrified. He starts to scream only at the next part of the nightmare. You scream already. This nightmare will be the death of you. Oh wait, it already is. Because your sanity keeps you alive and let’s be honest, you’re losing your shit again.

Butch rises from the couch after a few minutes. Like he can’t allow it to last longer. Like clockwork, like your blades. Hits his thighs, runs a hand over his head, says _no way in hell._

You envy his calm. Your knees still shake. Your hand for sure. After all _that_ and he’s the one who reaches. He grips your neck, shakes you good. Says jack shit to you but smiles a face splitting smile.

In his nightmare you take the place of his father. You ruin him. And then you drain his unborn child. Butch never says anything. He trusts you. It’s more than you deserve.

*

“Come on man, I need it.”

“Keep your pie hole open and I might show you what you _really_ need, Hollywood.”

“Nope, told you already I’m not into balls and chains. But seriously, can I borrow it?”

“Even if you want to use my shit to compose the biggest fucking masterpiece of contemporary literature, and I would still say no.”

“V…I know you don’t use it anymore. It sits there under your desk and collects dust. How long has it been, 40, 50 years?”

“NO. End. Of.”

 “Man, I was not gonna use it to break into the Pentagon files. Or download shit. Just to watch a movie with my Mary. My kid has this new game on and he confiscated our laptop-…”

“Use Phury’s old one. I updated his PC a year ago. And he also keeps his…garbage.”

Rhage grunts curses at your obsession with your Toys, old and new and he mumbles that you’re a possessive SOB. If he only knew. But _you_ know. You know you are and more than that, you’re ruined in the head and stupid and sick. Because you know the reason why your password protected laptop can’t be opened by anyone. Not even you. It sits there, just sits, a smooth black reminder. You hide your hands after you unconsciously caress it, even now. 

You try to forget the password. You try to recreate the events, the reasons for which you chose that 4 letter declaration of doom. You fail at both.

You take the laptop out. It burns in your hand. You wish your hand would burn it. The keys remember your touch and they feel heavy in their effort to compute.

He walks in. Your heart goes into overdrive, like an old motherboard suffocated by an even older, dusted fan.

“V buddy, even the fact that you remember the passwords for your entire tech gizmo hoarders’ wet dream, and I know it’s different on each one, you’re anal like that, and it gives me headaches.”

Nobody else can ever know. It’s with a wicked sense of masochism that you say it, the same moment you start to insert the password. Slow, aching, like a sex session unknown to you before watching him with his mate.

“Cop, the moment I’ll forget it’ll be free, roomy and quiet inside my head. But also I’ll probably be dead and buried.”

And you look up at him, see how he smiles and the smile fades as he tries to decide if you made a joke. You smile too. You expect the lashes of pain, the strings of guilt, the paradox of pleasure, as you type, one by one, the letters. Your brand, your doom, never taking your eyes away from his.

M-I-N-E

And your past opens along with the old Windows logo. Butch smiles again and calls you _big brain techzilla_ and you want to sink your teeth into his flesh and your cock into his insides and make him type that fucking password again and again and again.


	2. Chapter 2

“What up V?”

“Isn’t the wax on, wax off routine obvious?”

There is one thing you hate more than repetitions. It’s questions and in that category stupid questions take first place. And you’re confident what comes next from Z’s mouth ranks third.

“Fritz gotta earn his living brother. And his relief.”

…yeah, stating the obvious, condescendence _and_ underlying warnings. Top five of things you hate, right there. You ignore him. You keep washing your car, sponge filled with filthy water, lukewarm and heavy, over marks of blood, black and red. You don’t think. Or try not to. Just a simple routine chore, because you like your car and in a way, the Escalade is a hero too. You repeat it like a mantra.

“Butch isn’t waking up. She’s asking for you.”

You want to make him leave. You want him crushed under the car, lips sealed and black knowing eyes closed. You just stand there, a salt pillar caught in sunlight, glowing with impotence but radiating destruction.      

“I heard Bella doing the same. She sounded really … needy.” Cheap shot.

_obvious_

_coward_

He turns his eyes to you and you meet him there, in a contest, a provocation. You smell the night’s blood on him, see the healing wounds. How you would love to trade with him. To be you the one with the smeared wife beater, muscles showing under ripped skin, and let him have the nuclear implosion that consumes you and leaves no traces at all.

You hear a _fucking bastard_ as he turns on his heels. But he can’t give you the last word, the motherfucker can’t let you have at least it.

“She’s not enough. Marissa is not enough for him.”

The implosion _does_ leave marks. You scorch the roof of the car. Blow the windows right out without actually shouting.

Z pretends he doesn’t hear.

You pretend you don’t know you’re never going to be sane again.

*

You could probably pinpoint the exact moment when you were screwed. But you don’t put your mind to it. Training Phury’s son to understand codes and wires is a good enough distraction. He’s good. You’ll make him the best. That’s Vishous, you tell yourself, a big block of role model material. And sometimes, when no one is looking, not even you, the truth seeps in.

You’re preparing your replacement.

*

The Scribe Virgin doesn’t dare to call upon you directly. You wish she would. Oh, how you yearn it. Over time, she sends Wrath with various offers, orders and questions. You disregard every word as you would a pile of rotting lessers. There is nothing she can give you. Nothing she can make you do. And you hate interviews. Words are too much of a sign of acknowledgement for you to stand to give to that bitch. Already you give hate and even that seems very much like a gift.

*

She leaves his side as you take over.

_Can’t you make him stop this?_

You curse him and his destiny and his stupid fearlessness.

He binds himself to you and your glow as you lay there.

_Nothin like coming home after a hard day’s work_ _._

You forget to form thoughts.

*

It can’t be stopped. The war with the Omega. You stand back and quit being the self-proclaimed savior of the race. Even with your massive ego. Even if you’re half god. You have your brothers to worry about. And you have him. So you keep fighting when you’re asked. With him or in separate shifts, you punch and rip and stab and scar.

Because like this, after a fight, after his suicide routine, you have him. Half dead, reeking of lesser and death and evil, you still take him. He takes you in. Bathes in your light, smiles every time he comes through.

You want to beat the shit out of him. Someday, you will. You know it just as you know the exact moment when he comes back from the darkness. He stares at you with those confused eyes. The smile and the hard-on under the sheets are for her. The confusion is there because somehow, they are for you too. And he still doesn’t know what to do with that realization. Neither do you.

*

The locator is his idea. You both wear them around your wrists. In black metal and leather, a small wonder of technology you worked on for 2 months. You feel like a kid in school when you present it to him, waiting for an appraisal.  

“Everything you do just gotta be f*ing perfect, don’t it?”

You want to say _everything I do for you_ or _everything of mine you wear_ or _everything that makes you a little bit mine._ But of course you don’t say that shit, it’s girly stuff and more importantly, you already walked that road with the daggers, so you just keep your fangs in and mouth shut.

But after you put his on, you fuck Jane as if there’s no tomorrow, savage and mindless. You make her bite your wrist, just above the bracelet. You know taking it to bed is taking it too far. Too deep.  

The next week you give one to every brother. Just to make it less important. Just to make it bearable. He looks at you strange. You still feel like a stalker, his signal always pulled up onto your screen, over every other.

*

You give Jane one with an intricate design for your anniversary. It’s an apology more than a present.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, but I was expecting…maybe…something more personal?”, she says and touches your bare shoulders.

“It’s a locator Jane. I’ll be with you even when I’m not. It’s almost close to the clinical loony interpretation of personal.” You deflect, really, because you know she talks about her name on you. You’re not a complete idiot, thank you very much.

She smiles and reaches for you.

_Please understand Jane._

“We have all we need. I love you,” and you do. If you know love then this must be it. All the other things in you…those are you. Dark, twisted, an alter ego never fully allowed to be born and grow. To become too powerful. But this is love. Right?

“And I love you. Even after all this time, the same way I did in the beginning, V.”

You can easily say the same. This is constancy, not a burning need, a raging fever that needs containment so it won’t spread in your entire being. You wonder what would happen if it would.

“I’m thinking we need to make ourselves pretty and go out. Like a date…God, it’s been forever since I used that word.”

You think that if she was still human, she would be preparing her last communion. Because she now exceeded the life expectancy of a human. The though makes you sad. For her.

*

The first time you realize the cop probably follows you too is when he materializes behind the club, takes in the scene and punches you right in the face.

You spit blood, lick the wound and tuck yourself in. Your cock still throbbing, needing release.  When you’re clean, he punches you again. Hard. You almost come.

The civilian male is fumbling with his high-end glymera clothes and cheap bindings on his hands and neck. Butch approaches him like you would a stinking pile of shit and cuts the restraints. The male splits. The cop says nothing.

You smoke. Inhale his anger. And his unconscious fear. Equally unconscious possessiveness. It makes you want to punch back, beat it out of him again. The impossible. The reciprocation, the one you thought forgotten in the infirmary room where you lied first and he never actually said it.

_…I wanted to fuck you…_

_…but not anymore…because of her…_

_…admit you wanted me too... maybe just a little…_

All lies. In this deserted place, caught red handed trying to dom a civilian male, almost but not quite there in regretting it, you would need only one trigger.

But he stops the punches. Turns his back to you.

“Hitting you wasn’t probably one of my brightest ideas in the state you’re in.”

“Hm…” you exhale lazy and humored.

“You gonna finish this here or wait till you get home?”

Still not looking at you, pacing like a bull, Butch lingers.

“I can’t exactly surprise Jane with…this… and go all… Hey honey, I’m home!” you mock a shout.

He’s not amused. It’s really not amusing.

“Would another punch do it? Get you off?”

You’re dumbfounded. Painfully erect and blissfully trained on him. Like a predator. Like yourself. The undiluted version of Vishous.

He comes to you. Punches you again.

“This is for making me see this,” he spits.

“Oh…sorry for deflowering you virgin cornea, cop.”

Another punch. Centered, harder.

“Is this for Jane? Defending her honor?”

“This…you blind, deaf bastard, is because you remember everything except what matters.”

Just when you expect another hit, he takes your gloved hand. Cuts into it with the dagger he’s still holding then turns his back again never releasing you. Inches separate you from his back. You burn.

“Do it! Before I change my mind.”

You don’t even think. You palm yourself, wild rhythm, squeeze hard and come the moment he cuts your hand deep and slow.

After, he closes your fist. You close your eyes. And he’s already in the car, tires giving their best shriek.  

 

*

_I thought I was clear back then. You come 2 me. Only 2 me._

The text is received when you get home and hidden by the darkening screen of the phone but the offer remains. 

You think that if you _do_ go to him, chains won’t be enough this time. And him leaving after…won’t be allowed.

Because this session will not be about healing anger and injustice and the entire world’s crap pilling on your shoulders. Or about tearing you apart so you can rebuild yourself. It would be about you still wanting him and running out of fucking excuses and diversions to keep yourself in a leash. About the clarity and logic behind that want. About who _you_ are. It won’t be a session at all.

And then again, you could bet your mind reading superpowers he probably knows it too.

You wish he could have some fucking sense of self preservation. Or selfishness.

*

Years pass and the repeat of that session doesn’t happen. Neither of you ask. You come to a point where you don’t know who waits for it more. Or needs it. Or who between the two of you is the blindest.  


	3. Chapter 3

There isn’t a sign for it. Or time for preparation. And you are so not used to that. After all, you’re almost almighty, your visions and thought radar stronger every day. All worthless. Because it comes unexpected, in the same black on white flickering doom that technology calls SMS.

*

You set alarms just so you can maintain the appearance of normality. In fact, you don’t need an alarm for anything. You’re aware of everything, all the time.

Among all the echoes and shadows and whispers, _him_ you see clearly, feel deeply, like his being screams for your nearness. And when times call for a joke, well it’s obvious isn’t it, it should start with “a poet and a nutcase walk into a bar”. Starring Vishous, Son of the Bloodletter, as both.

*

It’s one of those nights. Dragging your feet but frantic for a fight, for the release in blood, shed for a cause.

You follow them, or lead the group, animal like, predator like. The brotherhood, a pack of fanged killers, tiptoeing like a ballet class in a grim warehouse. Spectacular night.

It’s not a time for meditation. But you do it, just to spite the mood. Not one of your favorite things to do anymore, not with the constant monologue crooning like a post apocalyptic radio station in the back of your mind.

You let yourself accept the fact that you still walk aware of him. After years and years of walking together with your brothers and not even half that standing beside _him_ , you home in on the cop like he’s the north to a V compass.

You position yourself as to use your body to protect his. Never far away. It’s not that you prefer to be sided to someone else in the streets, but having the cop near changes you and your fighting routine. From an arrow, a blade, you become a shield. More and more, of flesh and bones instead of just of light.

And you have the feeling that tonight he’s going to take you in, use you all, deplete you. It’s one of those nights when you feel your purpose all the way into your marrow. The Savior to the Dhestroyer.

*

The warehouse is huge. Could take half a night if you had leisure time. A stroll in the dark. You’re itchy as fuck.

 “V....”

“I heard you the first time.”

“Yeah well I don’t read minds. You give me the fucking willies brooding like that.”

“Fuck you right back and to answer your question, lesser are still here. Cop, you feel them too... And I’m not brooding, I’m doing my job. You should try it once Hollywood. Might like it.” You hiss, frustrated and light up one of your hand rolled. Butch stops and turns to stare at you with that all knowing or all questioning look.

“I’m not falling for it. You wanna fight, cop’s right there, lessers here somewhere playing hide and seek. But go ahead, start right now. The cop can put up with your shit. I’ll take the north and find me some justified and entitled punching bags,” the huge blonde replies and goes on a tour leaving you to cover the last two areas.

“Can you?”

“Can I what, V?” he whispers, eyes back at following shadows and misplaced dust.

“Put up with my shit?” you look at him from the corner of your eyes, a question there but also a threat and a request and maybe hope and some more resentment.

He doesn’t break the rhythmic movement but suddenly he’s in your face, fierce and you realize that yes, he can take it. Everything you can shove at him or under the carpet or on the table, he can take and put a nice little bow of reason onto it. Without judgment. Like he’s the king of reason and logic, like all your attributes migrated onto him and caught roots, like in fertile ground.

 “Always.”

It’s short and clear and said right there, in your exhaled air.

You throw away the stub and you want to do it. You smile. Catch his neck. Squeeze. You revel in his calm, in the determination to never be afraid or reluctant or defensive about your moves. Even if you poisoned his human body with your blood. Even if you hugged him when you were burning like a supernova. Even if you craved for him when he was mated. Even if you kissed him when he regretted the session he considered torture. He never retreats. And in a way, neither are you.

“Cop…”

You don’t kiss him now. You don’t bite him. You don’t punch him. You don’t tell him you’re afraid of that dream too. You don’t call him yours. You call him by his name to you. And it’s just that, a calling.

*

_You considered once that maybe it’s a fixation, a sexual deviation, something clinical. That you are, as a race, protected from the diseases of human nature, but what about the neurological ones? You rule that out after you have the vision or the hallucination maybe, of your death. And it makes you happy. Happy._

*

It starts like this:

_You don’t come back to the mansion. But make the cop get his ass here. Make SURE he gets here.ASAP_

You break the bubble you two share. Your finger hovers above the lit screen, like you could feel the warning in how deep the letters were punched into the phone by Whrath.

Butch springs to attention, his look changing from intense to questioning. You don’t enlighten the cop. And you never question an order like that. Or the King’s judgment. But this time… This time...You send:

_Why_

**Sent**

*

You can’t feel them initially on the psych radar because they are human and you’re trained on the lessers. They’re cops. It’s a hunch. You feel them now and there’s a glitch in your mhist.

 Looks like you weren’t the only one to receive information on this place. You wonder if the BoB has anything to do with this. Or if the night turned from fucking stroll to fucked up trap. You have your reasons to hate both but wish for one in particular.

The 3 humans push inside the circle you created. Less careful than you, less armed, less prepared. If this place was smaller, they’d be dead already. It’s still a chance they will be by the morning.

“Bad mix alert. We have humans on site.”

“Shit. I’ll get Rhage.”

You watch him turn, police habits lingering after all this time, merged into his new frame, training and strength.

You feel like he’s walking away from you and can’t shake the feeling. 

*

Night stats:

Two minds erased. Five eradicated lessers. Ten coming together in a pool of black blood. One overly pissed and bloodied beast. Four brothers as cavalry and one insistent King. One dead cop.

Not yours. You can breathe.

Qhuinn’s car will take them back to the Mansion, a pile of once star material Hollywood now looking like decrepit sack of bones and flesh. You refuse to leave, holding Butch close with one strong arm and threatening the others with the cursed one raised in clear warning. You warn them, because there is a chance, a very probable one, they’ll choose not to listen and obey the King. 

“I have to heal him first!”

“V, NOT your call this time.”

They want to take him, consider ripping him away from you.

“It’s _always_ my call with him!” you reply, deadly.

“The sun is biting our asses. We take him back and you can release your mojo on route. Don’t be stupid.”

A growl escapes you and they don’t make the move to take him. They know better. And you do too. They’re right. You always did fool yourself you knew better when it comes to your cop.

“Right back at you. I’ll move him when I’m sure he doesn’t have an expiration date overdue.”

You try to contain it, the light, the panic, the sickening mantra of _he took in five, too much, he took in five, too much, he took in five…_

“V…he’s got to come back today. Now!”

“I agree. So get the fuck out of here and let me bring him back.”

“It’s not you he has to come back to, brother mine.” Zhadist corrects.

The fucker.

*

You make it just in time to avoid a permanent tan. The rusted piece of metal falls over you, loose pieces of iron from the reinforced collapsed walls pierce your back.

He’s heavy and let’s face the obvious, exposed muscles that should normally stay under skin is not exactly optimal for dead weight hauling.

 _Not dead_ , you rectify.

You hurt even in your nails. Digging does that. But it’s also how you know you’re alive.

As a grave, it’s perfect. As a daylight surviving hole, it’ll do. You had no time to calculate the integrity of your shelter and if it will withstand your light. You refuse to wonder if your cop will.

You don’t have enough strength or sanity to imagine the scenario where Butch survives daylight but can’t survive you.

You called him _yours_. You don't rectify it.


	4. Chapter 4

The first time it happened, you resigned yourself to the inevitability of it. And you were beaten to within an inch of your life by Phury. On request. Long story. Butch doesn’t know it.

The second time it happened, you anticipated it. And you were away, breaking the Brotherhood trainees in a camp in the middle of nowhere. Still, you almost killed one of them.

The third time it happened, Jane left you for a week. As a result, you speak 5 additional languages you will never use in real life. You don’t discuss the psychological impact. You’re used to ignoring that.

Last time, Wrath had a “talk” with you. You may have detonated the _MINE_ bomb. Twice. The King still doesn’t know what to do about you. Yeah, rules used to be so simple, even when humans were involved.

This time, you feel it in the bones that make you strong and in the flesh that gives you shape. Every molecule of your blood screams it and your mind feels it as clearly as if it’s material evidence of it.

Fifty years gone and…It’s your last chance to say something, do something, decide if you’re going to spend the rest of your life in a state of denial, doing things altruistically for him or if you’re sane enough to finally make the decision and fight for yourself for once. Even if what you want is against everyone’s belief of what’s right.

Because the nightmare that you both fear, the one that brings you two on the couch, sweaty and scared, silent and sick to the stomach, is not a dream. It’s a premonition. One you refused to acknowledge until now.

*

Reasons why you don’t read the string of texts perturbing the silence of the grave you share with your damaged cop:

One - You can count just fine the insults, threats and quiet worry imprinted deeper into your mind with each chirp.  

Two – To concentrate on anything other than him… and it means you torch the whole city.

Three – You buy time. Mostly for yourself.

Four – You’re scared senseless. Of letters. Of what they can bring and make you do. Because you feel that this time nothing can stop you from doing it.

Holed up in here, hiding from light and your brothers and your King, and any news that may claim Butch, you feel free to call him back, in a possessive and desperate and angry howl.

Because _he_ took you first, resonated with your insides and your blood. He unearthed your spirit, awakened your suppressed _want_.

You struggled against it, called it perversion and rejected it, but it settled, like ashes after a world’s end in fire, still smoldering, suppressed and weighting more than your entire life.

When he’s like this and you’re near him, inside him with your light, you call him back. To you. And you wonder, in all rationality, if he should be able to answer you every time if he wasn’t- possessiveness be damned- _yours_.

*

“Tell me I’m not the reason for that smell,” Butch asks at some point and then drifts right back into unconsciousness, closer to your naked body, nuzzling the spot between your ear and jugular, oblivious to the smell that replaces the one he wakes up to. He’s responsible for both.

You say “Nah, it’s my cooking, cop,” to sooth him and you strengthen the embrace, very close to gone yourself.

*

It’s a hell of unspeakable pain, a cruel and unavoidable connection that gives birth to the bond every individual in your race suffers from. Strong males, slaves to the biological imperative of mating.

In your case, demigod and all, the need is still there, inescapable; but it’s not only the blood rushing under your skin and ripping you apart to get to him…in him. It’s your light too. It’s seeking the cop, disregarding even your own well being.

Tonight he’s going to drain you. And you don’t spend a moment to care as long as he’s safe and permeated by your presence and lingering want.

You think about lessers and scan for them, making sure they don’t send some more to scout the area, see what went down last night. If they come, you’re helpless anyway. But it’s all you can do to not go boom and cut short the day and both your lives.

To contain your light when he’s asking for it like this is like trying to hold back the blood flow when a wound starts to bleed and you have no hands, like trying not to reach orgasm when you’re inside the one you want and it’s your first time.

But you’re Vishous. Fuck what you _can_ do. It’s what you _need_ to do.

Blood sips into the cold earth and the hole is permeated with a mix of rotting meat and life preserving possessiveness. Yeah, that’s you alright.

 Evil cocoons you two and damned be the world, but you’re peaceful. You smash the phone just to be sure and revel in the nurturing act of cleansing him. In a sense, you’re feeding the cop. Puts a smile on your face and brings back memories from the times you actually had his blood inside you and he had yours.  

*

You struggle to stay awake. The sun sets soon and you have to save the strength to fight them all when they come. Because you made that decision. You’ll fight for him. At least give him the option to choose you. Or mock you or call you crazy and sever all ties to you. As long as he doesn’t leave.

Maybe in the process you’ll send Jane into Paradise or wherever humans go, according to their beliefs. She’s been a good companion and you love her, but her name still isn’t carved into your flesh. The vision you have from time to time tells you it’ll never be. The need you have for him makes definitive the fact you don’t even want another name on you.  

Before you can go Terminator and take on the world for him, you have to wait for the stubborn cop to come back. He must be close to recovering, because parts in him are straightening and hardening, he moves and you no longer feel like you reach into the Dhund to claim him back.

You’ll tell him the truth, because you can do that with your cop. And it’s a start, because after that you can practice telling it to yourself.

You’ll hear the solid logic behind every word said out loud instead of screamed inside and it will become real, not a fantasy, not a hidden sickness, not a forbidden door.

He’ll understand when you say you’re a moron and you lied when you said it was over for you and you were all right. Well, you lied to yourself mostly. He won’t understand why.

He’ll look you in the eyes when you say you claimed him from the beginning and you don’t give a fuck about his catholic upbringing and sexual orientation and “just a friend” mantra. You want him all. He won’t punch you. Hopefully.

You won’t offer a solution to this new mess, just lay down the offer – _I’m here, I want you and no one else. Say no to me, go back to her tonight and you’ll kill us both._

Your boy will breathe, inhale, exhale, and rub at his eyes, maybe his mouth. And that’s where your mind stops constructing scenarios. Because there are only a handful of routes this night can take:

He’ll abandon everyone and take the little, so little, you offer. But then you’ll have to live with a broken Butch, because he’s what he is, a male of worth, a fucking hero.

He’ll say he’s sorry, leave, destroy you and never forgive himself.

Or he’ll be passive, driving you crazy with his unspoken words and let himself be taken by your brothers back to her. That, now _that,_ is a lost war for everyone involved.

You will only allow the male to leave if he asks you. If after hearing you out he commands you to step aside, kindly go to hell and fuck yourself.

*

“Still here?” he asks, not that he seems to mind the position nor does he move a muscle to change it.

“Too hot outside for my taste,” you joke, the scorching heat inside the hole you made with your own hands nearly taking all your air. You train your breath; control your light, everything you can so he can continue healing.

 “Mhm…” he replies, closer, smiling, inhaling. _He must know_ , you tell yourself    _He must know_ and black out again.

*

You can stand him going back to her in a day or two, but not tonight. You can handle him refusing you now and telling you to go meet the sun, as long as he’s not going to her tonight. You can handle him gently pitying you from now on, but not going to her tonight. Even him pretending your offer, your claim, never happened, as long as he knows, as long as he KNOWS, and stays tonight.

If you beg him to refuse to go to her? If you threaten him? If you stop him? If you stop them from taking him? From helping him? Will you lose him completely?

You’ll be banished from the Brotherhood. That is a fact. No brother will accept you coming between a male and his shellan. No matter what rule of bonding you present them. It’s not like you can all have a seat around a table, Butch laid square in the middle, silent and innocent like a lamb and take turns with Marissa at presenting your case.

She can say Butch covers her in his scent. You can say you bonded the male when he was still human and drank your blood and he was covered in your mark, inside and out. And that you brought him into this world and since then your body and mind screamed he’s yours.

She can point to the fact that his blood keeps her strong and hers is nourishment to him. You can prove that your light, a curse to all of them, is salvation to Butch and if that isn’t the best equivalent of feeding your mate, then you don’t know what is. 

She can present the evidence of her name on his back and his sex in her. Maybe with a side demonstration even, for the sake of impact and show, while you come empty on that and the only thing you have to show is evidence against you and your claim on him: Jane.

All the while the cop sitting there and taking in everything, a nod here, a smile there, a curse now and then, his job to chose the best speaker.

Even as a freak show of a tragicomedy and it sounds sick.

The truth remains that the brotherhood won’t stand back and watch you keep him away from her. Not now.

So your only choice is to stay awake, fight them, explain to him. Explain that if he goes to her, he’ll kill you. And once you’ll have nothing by choice, you’ll destroy everything by default.

*

“Fuck, this wall is turned into glass! He turned stone into glass.”

“How in the Scribe Virgin’s name they’re still alive?”

“Are they?”

“Butch….Cop… What the hell happened here? You in the mood to sun bathe?”

“What?...”

“You don’t remember?”

“Big breakfast. Had to take a nap. How’s V?”

“They’re taking him to his penthouse right now. He’s out. A beauty sleep, nothing serious.”

“And you, my man, have to come with us now. You’re late for a date. We’re going crazy back at the mansion.”

“What happened?”

“Marissa’s needing period.”

*

You don’t remember them pulling aside the debris and getting you out. You do remember his hand squeezing yours and his body being torn from your hot skin. The desperate attempt to hold on, wake up, muster some force to carry out your plan. All down the drain, along with your future.

The coat they put on you feels like a freezing, isolating hell and you try to fight it.

You wake up in your penthouse. Jane is there. The shutters are down.

“She refused the medication this time. Tonight you can see him again. It’s almost over. I wish-”

It’s all background noise.

You don’t feel pain, or despair. You feel like a dog they abandoned in a shed with a bone, away from the house, hoping he’ll chase his tail to calm and sleep.

You stare at the door, pinned to the bed. Senseless.

Marissa will carry his child after today.

What now?


	5. Chapter 5

You wake up in hell. You thought you knew pain but this is beyond that. Voices scratch your ears and the inside of your brain, and they fade again as you burn and burn and burn.

 Time doesn’t pass, it just is, filthy molasses ruining theorems of space and dimensions. You live outside it, in and out of consciousness.

Butch’s dream is not a dream, as you have the full vision.

Clear as day, replayed inside the carbonized walls of your body. You can’t escape it, turn it off or close your eyes to it. You’re trapped inside yourself with the murderer.

And the murdered is you.

 _Butch is a baby in the arms of his MIA vampire father. Butch is full of blood. His father’s lips are covered in angry red marks. Like from a kill, like from a sin. And then, in an instant, the father is you. Looking down at Butch. Cradling him, smothering him. And you shine. And Butch is terrified. As you drain his unborn child_.

This doesn’t feel like your death bed. It feels like your death. Trapped inside the penthouse, noises coming and going, you don’t know and don’t try to know why you fell and hit rock bottom like this.

Butch comes once. Marissa is there beside him. You try to hide yourself, crawl over into the marbled walls. But you can’t even open your eyes to the real world. You just smell them over the sickening scent of carbonized skin and unwanted pity.

“You saved me V. You’re a fucking hero, more than that, Jesus, protecting me from sunlight… and I’m a stupid SOB. Come on, punch me, and yell at me. V…just wake up. Stop this. They said you were fine when they pulled us out. You do this to yourself you motherfucker. So stop. Right now, get up and man up. Or open your mouth and take some blood. You shithead…I hate this…you …you selfish -”

“No Butch, leave him…he’ll decide when he wants to come back.”

You remember licking your lips after you touched them to the back of his neck, there, in the hole, in the exposed warehouse where you decided you’ll keep him to yourself.  You licked him. His sweat tasted like something positively divine and, in lack of a deity to worship, that day you spent worshiping it.

He lived, you kept him alive, but he drained you and you delivered happily, only to have him taken by your brothers. To her.

“Come on man, you’re killing me. I don’t understand why. So take a vein and live and then tell me. They can’t stick tubes into you, they can’t force you, they can’t come near you. V…please…stop this. Why …I…I don’t understand…”

You crush your lips together and refuse to breathe. Inhuman sounds pass, you hope, for rejection and not fear and the more you fight against the hand he shoves at your mouth, the more you feel him heating up, with desperation, fear and loss.

“You…,” come out the words, pieces of your own esophagus poring over cracked lips.

“Sweet mother of God…Vishous…It’s me. I’m here. Take my blood. They can’t come near you…so just…stop it…”

“You…” you try to warn him, scare him off, to make him take Marissa away. Because you feel the undeveloped, conceived baby and it makes you want to destroy them all for being so blind.

“V…,” his voice breaks and Marissa starts to cry in the distance.  

Hell smells like wet concrete and fury. And it’s paved with impotence.

*

Your skin is scorched; movement makes it sound like dust covered paper in friction with a blackboard. The bed is not on fire anymore, but the memory of the white is engulfing even the energy your body leaves as permanent mark in the Universe.

Your eyes open and close but in the light of the candles they do the impossible and let you blind to the surroundings. Breath doesn’t come naturally, you fight for it and you wonder why. You should just stop. Instinct is a crippling asset. It’s too late to avoid the massacre.

Somehow, someday, you’ll have blood on your hands. Sacred blood. Your cop’s blood. You’re going to murder his child. How will you do it? Your logical mind battles with itself, creating plans, like the assassin you are and then erasing them like the friend you hope you can remain.

You arch in spasms, grind your teeth.

*

Seven days after they locked you away from your cop in the penthouse and you imploded and exploded, going supernova and making it impossible for anyone to come near you, Butch came again.

What he did to you was what made you want to live.

Weak himself from feeding Marissa’s needing, and weak from going nowhere with begging you to stop, he comes in silence.

Cremated beyond recognition by your own hand and without any blood to heal you, they all wait for you to let go.

And you tried, over and over again, but the fire within you kept you alive and dying at the same time. Your… mother visited, her hand a cool relief you refused every time she tried to come near you. She knows, she must know and yet…

“I knew nothing of this. I see what you see. This is your own doing, your choice.”

You try to send her to hell, to screw herself, to vanish, but the burning stops even the hate.

It stops hate, but not love and want.

He comes alone. You hear him send Jane away. You hear him undress. You hear him curse you. In his mind. And then begging some more.

You feel him lay next to you, trembling, hissing. For all the others coming near you when your light is this strong is impossible. And it must hurt him too. But he comes at you, all skin and blood and pain. You stop existing.

He bathes you in his blood.

When you reborn, your killer light going down and the fire stops, his wrists are slashed and he looks at you as if you have all the answers.

“Welcome back. Moron.”

You don’t wait for words or explanations. You’re over him and his mouth is warm, his skin is warm, his blood is warm.

He pushes you away, stares at you and spits his own blood, taken from your lips, gathered from your mouth on his. And then he starts to hit you. Once, twice, a third time, until you’re blessedly passed out cold and calm for the first time since they dragged you both from that hole.

*

Jane is a shadow in the corner. Translucent and far away. You don’t feel completely awake.

“I’m not sure you can move. You tried before, after Butch… Oh God V, he left you for dead. After all you suffered, he just…

“…he gave me life…”

“I don’t understand any of this. I thought I lost you. Twice. I still do, when you fall completely still…”Jane says from the safety of darkness.

The contained tears smell like acid dropped on the ashes of your flesh. They dig holes into your body and fill it with resentment and pity.

You try to tell her to go, leave you alone, but no words come out of your mouth, only heat. Unimaginably painful heat, like someone served you the sun as vodka.

“B…Butch…”

“You want him here? Still? Vishous…Wait, don’t answer that. Of course you want to. It’s all you ever wanted. It was my choice to be so blind but God, my love, it’s killing you. I can feel you implode every time Marissa’s needing period approaches. And now I know why. You think you are entitled to him. And Marissa giving him a baby is going to forever take him away from you. I know is what you dread. And you talk in your sleep. More like scream it.”

In the quiet, the incredible quiet inside your head, she sounds like a thousand birds clawing on metal roofs. Are you awake? Or are you consumed and gone in the In between?

“I can shut up V. But can you? Tell me you can keep it inside for longer, lie to me, lie to yourself. You said it all when you were unconscious. He left you beaten to a pulp. I forbade him from here. And you keep saying you’ll murder his young. In your sleep, you say it over and over again. Asking forgiveness. You told him that? That’s why he left you for dead? And you still want him? To lie to him too?”

You look at the candles, slowly burning, the flame combined with that of the burning bed in your memory. The smell permeates your skin. You see everything in black and white. Strange.

“I’m done with lying,” you offer as last words and dematerialize, like an amber disappearing as soon as the shutters start to come up for the night.

You’re done with all the lies and half truths, but the raw power of not caring anymore makes you dangerous and the damn hand keeps glowing like it’s the 4th of July times seven.

But what comes next won’t be a party. But it’s not a suicide mission, or a killer one. It’s a rescue. And it will leave you as a walking, breathing corpse.

*

 You take shape outside the mansion you haven’t seen in 2 weeks. Sluggish fog is caressing the cold pavement and creeping inside your soul. You’re blind to them all, the silence inside your mind a train wreck waiting to happen, happy to happen. Oh, how you love it sometimes to feel like a God. Give up pretensions, masks of caring and comparisons, any form of humanity.

Stomping on thoughts, words and other needs, on bodies, and feelings, you’re above them all, you have nothing so nothing can ground you, and sometimes, like today, you _want_ nothing and that gives you the perverse power of refusing everything.

You feel her presence and in her the presence of his past and his future and your end. His blood, his semen, his mark, almost like she’s wearing him whole, her becoming your cop. But you can’t make that mistake. Never really could. No one will come even close to distract you from him, make you forget how he’s the only one.

You shut Rhage’s mouth just by looking at him. He stops dead in his tracks, that guilty, surprised puss and downcast eyes a mere painting on the mansion’s walls. You hate the way they all know. They knew in the beginning and they _still_ know. You hate that the STILL exists.

Phury tries to approach you and his words fly by like a whisper, the same intensity the one in his mind screams with. The demon inside the male and his own words of comfort are nothing to you now.

His twin passes by you and puts all his determination into a side kick. He’s fast and deadly, but you’re already gone, dead inside, dying still. You grab his neck, eyes never on his face.

“Z…”

It’s not a threat or a warning. It’s just his name, serving, for the first time in decades, as a shield. He’s your brother, you remind yourself. And when the time will come, even _he_ will want to take you down. And you, out of all of them, will let Zsadist go first. Him before the others, to destroy you, little by little, sadistically and without remorse. You count on him, as a brother, for the father that he is.

Wrath comes down the imposing stairs and thunders orders of no relevance to you.

“V! I said come to my fucking office. NOW!”

You look at him. More like stab him with two rays of deadly reproach. You can catch his thoughts just before you enter the tunnel to the Pit.

_Don’t do something stupid man. I’d hate to lose you._

You let out a howl behind the closed doors. Bitter, angry, desperate, powerful, all the things you used to be are now echoes on the tunnel’s walls. Your scream is now hollow.

And the same as your future: inescapable.


	6. Chapter 6

The sound of your own paces helps you control the deadly light. Closer to him and you can’t contain it any longer. As you reach his room, you’re a wraith, silent and completely deadly to everything in the world. Except him.

He comes out from under the sheets and his eyes light up even before his body does. He breaths and you hate the way he inhales you. He’s mellow, spent, sexed up and sucked dry, a goofy smile on his face along with bead sheet creases.

“I wanted you from the beginning,” you offer, a blow, not to him, to you.

The cop pulls himself up, falls back lightheaded, and struggles up again. Frowns and crazed eyes blink, unsure if he imagines you or he dreams and if he does, why does he dream this? And why are you on your knees and how can he hear this and if he dreams he hears this, then why is he?

He gasps, fish like movements from a disfigured, disbelieving face.    

“We’re not good at this. _I’m_ not good at this, cop.”

He reaches a hand, that god damned confusion still there, endearing, too close to pity and you fall on your ass. Stay there, fallen, beside his bed. Laugh. Run a hand over your face.

“V…”

The way he says your name…You want to erase yourself from him altogether. So you can hurt him and feel nothing. Better end him now than do it to him later.

You want to say: _I’ll have you now. Before everything. Before I’ll kill you and then end myself. Before you can feel hate_. You want to say it but you don’t.

You stop moving altogether, tilt your head to the right, inhale and lose all reason. You crouch like an animal, flesh containing muscles, tendons and blood vessels. And for the first time he shows fear.  

You stop dead in front of him, the movement too fast even for him to follow, closer than his own skin is to him.

“You should have let me die,” you plead with him, beg him. And wait.

The smell intensifies, it’s not your imagination but you wait. Wait for him to say it, confirm it, say you’re crazy and he’s had enough of that from you. Instead he-

“Never,” he murmurs to your face and you inhale his vow. And you want to tell him that if you stay, he will want to hunt you down and kill you. Slowly. You want to warn him but…

He kisses you slowly, like he fills you with life and hope. Like he forgives you anything. He’s a fool, because you can’t stop the fulfillment of that vision. You want to stay. More than everything you ever wanted, even him, you want to stay. But you can’t.

God damn you, but you rip yourself from his lips.

“Get dressed. We’re going for a drive.”

And you disappear, the movement of the air you leave behind still kissing his lower lip.

 *

The note to Zsadist: placed.

The letter to your King: sent.

The phone call she deserves…postponed until you make a sense of what you’re doing.

The sms to Marissa: itching to be sent.

*

“What’s this all about then, V? It can’t be that night, because it was stupid of us but we made it. You saved me. And then it all went to hell…you… and tonight…”

You watch his profile in the passengers’ side window and you suck on your hand rolled. Yeah, tonight was mostly unplanned, as much as unplanned happens to you. The note to Zsadist …you slipped it when he tackled you. Easy. You want the brother to come after you when things will go that way. He’ll make you suffer the most, because he understands pain more than anyone. And he’s a father. And he won’t be your brother anymore.

Neither of them will be. The letter to Wrath sits in the Pit since about 50 years ago, when Butch mated Marissa. Sure, circumstances have changed, but it’s a basic kind of Dear John letter, so it can apply to this too. It’s not like something, anything you write can make the wrong go right.

 “Am I playing driver, or are you going to say something?”

“Seems to me I said enough cop.”

“The fuck you did. I know this already. About you…and me. I knew then and I know now. And the fire starter routine you pulled can’t be about that. So spill. ”

“Everybody thinks they know everything. Good for you.”

“Quit bitching. Sorry to have to tell you, but you were obvious back then. Now, it’s just me. _I_ know. Me. Lingering detective skills maybe. The brothers just think you’re having another meltdown.”

“Good to know I can be a reliable gossip subject.”

“Are you drunk or something? Did the burning yourself shit fry your brain? I said _I_ know. _I_ know you want me. I bet you feel like they know, they whisper, judging you at First Meal. You’re wrong Sherlock . Everyone is clueless. It’s been too long. You’re getting better at playing cold, detached V.”

It’s true, and you can’t believe you left yourself unsatisfied for this long. You’re not this…movie version of a baddie, all vanilla and selflessness, mask after mask of cold front, warmth and fuzziness inside. You’re Vishous. The cold and blind rational determination is you. And you TAKE what you want. Is this what the future means? The kill? That will be you, coldly applying a plan to have him for yourself?  

You feel him pulling you out of your own introspection. You feel him heating up, an amazing scent filling the car and winning over reality. He speaks. Did you miss something? You’re still tired and very much recovering, the body you abused so much begging to be left alone to heal. But you need to listen to him…

“I feel it when you’re near me. Back then I thought it was some ghost feeling or some shit, whatever you call it, because you confessed to me. And I thought you were over me, with Jane and all. But ever since our session together at your penthouse, and that…day, every now and then, I feel it.”

They make you vulnerable, his words. It’s always kind of ok if you know and if you endure it. Suppress it. But the clarity he has makes you want to fuck him and punch him at the same time. To know and say nothing… To feel and give nothing back...

“Don’t give me that freaky look. I’m used to your stripping down stare. I have nothing to hide anymore. But I hid this. From Marissa and from you. And mostly from myself.”

“Oh thank you so much for your consideration,” the snarl comes out cold and defying, just like the bones of the fist he plants in your puss as you consider this very attributes.

Pay attention, the killer instinct yells at you. Fuck off, being taken by surprise by him is too good at this point.

“Do you listen to me, V? Just listen!”

You stop in the middle of cleaning your bleeding lip. And you know instantly the next words will be the new haunting of your dreams.

“I …need you.”

*

“What you said…I …yeah, you’re right, we’re not good at this. But I … I don’t know if it’s …you know…sexual or …-“

The movement is slow and you deliberately hold his eyes. Damn the road or any accident that may happen. The hand that holds the remnants of your blood goes to the vein on his bare neck. And the other cups his slowly swelling cock. His breath escapes him. He looks at you, your cursed hand and then the road again.

“Yeah…I guess…The thing is, I love her and I don’t cheat. But I can’t _live_ without you.”

*

 “I’m going to kill you cop.”

You turn to him and a scene from an old movie plays in front of your eyes. The main character watches you, questioning eyes, half doubtful, half amused, as the landscape rushed behind the window at incredible speed.

“Watch the road. I’m not gonna do it by distracting you from driving.”

“I’d say too late for that. Seems like it’s all you wanna do.”

“It’s the reason why you’re driving now, not me.”

“You had another vision?” he asks, tone changing, careful.

“Actually, _you_ had.”

The car makes a sudden, too sudden move, your neck argues, and takes a dark path inside the woods surrounding the mansion. You trust his driver skills but not his temper so you grab the keys out of the ignition and jump out of the car as soon as it stops moving with a clearly mechanical issue underway. Fritz will have to retrieve it. There goes your ride.

“Come back here V,” he shouts behind you, trying to unfasten his seatbelt and keep you in his sight.

“Why cop, you afraid of the dark? Seems to me you danced your way around it for some time now. With yourself, with the Omega….with me…”

“Seriously V, slow the fuck down and give me a break with the Freud interpretation of me following your insane ass into the forest. And tell me what you mean by me having the vision.”

You stop, he stops. You turn, he comes closer. You inhale, he tenses.

“You’re angry.”

“Noooo…now how can that be? Here we are, having a completely calm and sane conversation in the middle of-”

“I want to fuck you. Or you to fuck me. At this point, I’m not picky.”

 He just stops. Everything stops.

*

You can’t say it’s rational. Or wise or sane.

He lets you suck him only after he sits down on his back, little desperate breaks from kissing you only to place his coat on the cold ground. Damn cop, always thinking about his lover. Are you that now? Here, are you his lover?

You laugh like a madman and he closes his eyes when he takes your mouth back, fixes you with his look when you kneel and watch him from down there, frowns when you unzip him.

He stops moving after that. You think he wakes up and realizes this is real. You think he panics because this is you and not her taking him inside a warm body, a start, the best kind of start. You panic because you never did this before. To anyone. 

But no, he’s right there with you, seeing only you, a surrender to something that circled you both since forever. You were afraid sex wasn’t a choice with him. But he’s responding to you and lets you choose and you chose this. God, fucking him would be everything you ever wanted, but this, this is what you deserve and have the power to take. Because he’s not yours, even if he should be, and you can’t endure more than this.

Taking him inside you feels too invading to feel like you’re dreaming but the moment he moans as you lick his skin you can swear to any god or human or vampire you’ll never hurt him. You never saw yourself like this, did you? You’re giving yourself to him and trust him to take you. Only him. Only now. Maybe if you could…No, you know that any plan, any vow you‘re prepared to make right now, any promise, would be a lie constructed by deceiving chemicals.

So you don’t make plans, except for where to suck and lick and you’re whole practiced, enhanced memory serves you now just to record his reactions to you. You have to stop a few times and he believes you’re such a fucking tease, such a fucking expert, when actually it’s just you being overwhelmed with need and so pathetically inexperienced.

He stays quiet, so unlike him, so frustrating, because you can’t keep your eyes on him continually and his tense silence gives you no clue at all. Is this ok cop…is this…

As he comes inside your mouth, so soon, so intense, weak attempts to warn you and remove himself from you before it happens, you know you’re right to leave tonight. It’s either that or claim him and start a war that will eventually destroy him. A blowjob is not a promise. It changes nothing except you wanting more. 

You allow yourself to just stay there another minute, considering the taste and him, the silence and yourself. The fantasies you had compared to the messy reality. Do you still want it? Does it matter now?

“I had dreams of you. I wanted to protect you. I called you mine. I gave you my blood. Not a strategically planned move entirely. You _were_ mine. In my head, in my fucked up head…you…are mine.”

You start to get up, he follows. You don’t look back as you declare your last selfless act, the taste of his semen and defeat on your tongue.

“What I said before… cop…it’s true. The dream you keep having…I’m going to have blood on my hands. Get back to the house. I’m doing the best thing I can to keep you, Marissa and your young safe. Yeah, she’s expecting. Congratulations, you’re going to be a father. And what I did to you just now, I hope to hell and back you can’t forgive it. But it’s the reason why I know for sure I’m capable of the things you dream of. Anyone who takes you, who has you completely, who takes you away from me … I want them all dead. Even if it’s an unborn child.”

The silence is broken by the engine of the car. You think about how much he had the stomach to listen to, how it’s a fucking miracle he didn’t stab you and how that 6.2-liter V-8 still runs.

But most of all, you think about how the answer is yes. To any question related to him, the answer will always be yes.

And it’s the greatest miracle of them all that you have the power to keep standing and dematerialize to the airport when all your body asks is to be left for the sun.

*

_You are with child. Never let me come close to you or the baby. Ever._

Sending…sending…Sent


	7. Chapter 7

“How’s Italy?”

“Is the line safe?”

“Yes V, it’s fine. I’m using what you sent me.”

“Good. I left Italy. Wrath asked me to check something for him.”

“It’s …it’s good. That you still work with the Brotherhood.”

“Don’t confuse things. I’m not a Brother anymore.”

“Some of us don’t see it that way.”

“Others do.”

“I miss you. I know what I said and I know you don’t…Ahhh…Listen, can I come…do you have everything you…I…I don’t know what to say. We keep up this…communication, words, but we don’t really say anything to each other, do we? And I…”

“I have to go, Jane”

“You do, don’t you… Butch is-“

_Line disconnected_

_Beep-beep-beep_

*

You don’t stay put for the first few months. You smash the bracelet, partly because you hope someone plans to follow and kill you and you really don’t want to make it easy for them, partly because you fear someone plans to follow and kill you and you might let them.

Caveman status is fine, you tell yourself. Forests and quiet. Evading daylight, cheating death or taking it in little dosages, like poison, until it drives you to the brink, and over. It feels almost like pleasure. Almost.

High life is fine too. Tokyo and London and penthouses, and fast cars and bikes and murmurs of regular thoughts and wishes that mean nothing to you. Il feels almost like quiet. Almost.

*

When you need to feed, rarely, you take.

She’s making little annoying noises as you suck in your nourishment.

The corner of the street is dark and you can easily pass for overheated lovers. The danger of being discovered makes this bearable. Her blood is strong and you can follow her lineage to her warrior grandfather. You chose her because of the strength. It will only make the necessary feeding shorter and lasting longer. She wants you, her body warming up under your lips.

You cover her mouth and she misunderstands. You have sex in mind, but not with her and not the way she wants it.

“Maybe my brother would interest you then?” she arches and whispers, eyes locking onto someplace behind you.

You jump back from her neck when the words stop your frenzy and take a coherent form and at the same time someone cups your half hardened cock from behind.

She laughs.

*

You like …and how fucking weird is the sound of that, you _liking_ something… but you like Tibet.

*

When you want to fuck, even rarer of a need, you do.

You have him spread on the back of a Ducati Diavel. Yours, not his. You hear the muffled cries as the long chain draws blood – his, not yours.

From every crevice the hits create, rivulets ripple on a cellular scale with every new impact and get accentuated by savage thrusts. Yours, not his.

The helmet makes him invisible, only smell and back muscles there to remind you he’s a male. And later, after so much useless blood, you turn him over and try to take him in your mouth. Feel again. Want again.

You give up even before your first knee touches the ground. Instead, you throttle the engine and push his torso into the hot exhaust to cover old needs. Yours, not his.

The semen -his, not yours- makes you sick, as he already begins to heal his burns.

You’re still raw.

*

“Is it done?”

“You know it is.”

“V…”

“If your next words are about a thing you want me to do then shoot, if not, shut it Wrath?”

_Line disconnected_

_Beep-beep-beep_

*

Sometimes you kill. Not for need or want. But for sport.

It’s not a lesser, but it’s not a vampire either. This thing you chase is a construct of the modern days. A creature with no fear, no limit to its depravity and powers and no soul. He’s evading you, making the game so much more complex and distracting.

You’re judge and jury to the corrupt fucker.

You get to him using your brain, following breadcrumbs of bodies, countries and wars. The moment you finally look him in the eyes is like resurrection. The incredulity, the hope, the begging…All stopping when the knife is buried in his heart and your pupil gives him a hell of a farewell.

All his money, bodyguards, jets and boats and high class company and promises and invincibility delusion…and they all mean nothing for evolution.

Next to his bloating body, soon to be worm food, on his billion dollar island, home of said worms, among innocent sacks of flesh that only did their job, you are like a god. You bask in the nothingness of it all.

Power is, after all, not something you want to give up.

*

You go back to Tibet after that. You tell yourself it’s for the silence.

*

It makes little difference what they look like, say or do. You enjoy only the hunt for them, the game. They provide to the different needs you have and this animal state, you must admit, suits you.

But then you have to sleep. And you do, but it’s only to wake up. And when you do, it’s either afraid you’re covered in blood, or terrified the hand that moves to give you pleasure will stop.

You’re in perfect control when awake, but in your sleep you’re abandoned to the subconscious. Even power is useless if it can’t make you achieve life without sleep.

In some dreams, you have the blood you need, both for nourishment and simply for the taste, a strong hand caressing your nape as you take too much and say sorry that you’re never full, but

_please don’t go, please stay, please let me have you all inside me, every drop, I’ll let you take it back, all of it, even if it’s as useless, please take only me_

Sometimes you get the musky pressure of a cock blocking you air supply and filling you, a strong hand caressing your hair as you take too much and say sorry that you never give, because

_I want you in me, I do, but I don’t know if I can after what my father made me watch and do, please, please show me how to be with you_

And from time to time you get that vision that fools you and terrifies you, disguises and slips inside you next to a dream.

In it, the kill is performed with precision and purpose.

The baby never cries. Marissa does. She screams and screams and there’s blood everywhere and you know you can be so much more careful and precise but oh, the pure joy you feel, the words that you utter

_I have you, I have you now, I’m not letting go_

In your dreams, it’s all for you. But you always wake up screaming his name.

_Butch_

*

“Hi.”

“Jane.”

“I…”

“It’s not a good time…”

“I know…I know…it’s just … harder to say something to you every time.”

“I know.”

“Can you at least say you’re sorry. Once?”

“…”

“Forget it. I’m outside the hotel. Can I come in? Oh, look how silly this is. Like in the movies, asking permission to enter. And I may not be a vampire and all that is shit anyway, but I need to hear you say Come in.”

 “Is this about you or us?”

“No.”

“…”

“Vishous?...”

“Come in.”

*

The curtains hide and reveal you, hide and reveal you, scene after scene of silence cut in small pieces of encore called to stage by the nights’ spectators: desperation and restlessness.

She’s as translucent as the sky and as rapidly coming to light.

“Small talk is out of discussion then? V? No “ _How are you_?” or “ _There’s something changed about you_?”, not the smallest of talks so I can reply with passive aggressiveness or even downright aggressive bottled up anger?”

You watch the shutters come down slowly. Unique hotel, this. Protection, but incarceration also.

“No then. Ok. You’re a coward and a fuck up and you hurt us all because you have a god complex. And you lie and lie. I’m an abandoned shellan, the Brotherhood, you throw them away like they mean nothing to you. Do you really have a vision of yourself killing Marissa’s child? Do you?”

The itching feeling crawling on your abs is the sun as it starts to shine and pushes into the steel barrier. The itching feeling crawling in your chest is your fate.

“Is Butch-”

“Shut up! For once, do what you do best and shut up. Go back to pretending you care about something, anything else but him or you. Pretend, because you’re so good at faking it. Oh fuck, I really can’t help it, can I?  The disgust.”

“Spare me the lecture and irrationality. This can’t be about you having enough of me.”

“God…you’re so cold and calculated. Was this your scheme the entire time? Turn a vision into a conquest?”

“What the fuck are you talking about Jane?”

“You’re not going to murder his child. And my guess is, because, mind you, I didn’t have you there to infirm it, to tell me I’m wrong, or declare me insane, my guess is you’re hiding and wait to claim him as soon as she and the baby are gone. And now is the time. Because they’re almost gone. You sick fuck!”

“What?!”

“And it’s wrong in so many ways…So many levels of degenerate I can’t even comprehend. Is this what you really wait for to come back? Their death? Well, let me drive you there. By the time we’ll get back Marissa and the child will be buried.”

_No no no no. This wasn’t the way…_

“Oh, you have the IQ of a genius but this was soooo stupid.”

_Yes, yes, I am stupid but it’s not possible, the visions are never wrong_

“ You won’t have him. Never. Not even as the shoulder he cries on. Because you destroyed him after you left.”

_No, no, no…what have I done? How can it be…_

 “Maybe you filled his head with the aberration you called a vision, maybe you did nothing at all and it’s just as bad. We don’t know, nobody knows, because he hasn’t even uttered your name once since. So you’ll never have him, in any way and never again. Because this last loss will surely be the end of him. He’s suicidal beside her bed. Right now. As we speak.”

  _window_

_morning_

_trapped_

_Butch_

_Never_

_never lose him_

_get to him_

_save_

_save them to save him_

“So Vishous, my hellren in name only, I’m here to invite you to the funeral of your competition, and also to that of your most repressed desire.”

_No_

_No_

_NO_

“NO!”

“At least they die as mated,” she curses at you with venomous reproach and she starts to fade.

You just think it, once, and she stops, looks through you, smiles and disappears completely, a wailed _VISHOUS_ echoing from wall to wall.

No remorse, you part of her as if she’s a stranger, an amnesic who forgot everything you are and she parts with you as if receiving her fate from an ouija board. Smiling and calling a strange name.

Your bitch mother tries to make an appearance. It sounds like a whisper, telling you to stop. A command telling you to stay. A chain forcing you to kneel. A proclamation to accept your fate. Telling you it’s impossible to even try.

A flick of the wrist and she fades away, banished in a blast of your light.

You have nothing but realization. This was all a perverse game your mother conceived in the hours of her banishment from your life. A plan to reduce you to nothing. To scrub away your wishes. To burn away your limitations. To rip away your power to feel anything and have anyone. She wanted to make you a god.

Oh, you will be a god. But in your own terms.

You deserve this for believing, for not trusting, for leaving him even for a second and not continuing to be there like a friend, like a brother, like the dog you are.

All that is left, after you sent your wife to the Fade and possibly murdered your mother, is to smash the reinforced barrier, say his name, make the promise…

… and walk willingly into the sunlight.


	8. Chapter 8

“How nice to see you, nephew. Can I call you nephew? I guess I can, since you’re intruding. I most certainly can say whatever I want.”

“Omega.”

“Oh…so little respect. Never any respect from you. Not even for your mother. She had it coming, the way she raised you…”

“She didn’t raise me.”

“In her own way…she did. The reason why you can open the door and just walk out into the sun to get to your obsession is because you are her son. No erasing the heritage there. One might say you have to thank her. For allowing you to get to him. To my son.”

“He’s not your son.”

“Still denying it? After you took so much of his darkness? I know you loved every moment spent to heal him nearly as much as I hated it. And to repeat myself, one might say you have to thank me.”

“He’s nothing to you. He’s _mine_.”

“Oh and does he know that? Seems to me he knows and accepts my intentions better than yours. I’m even confident enough to say I felt him and I was inside him more than you dreamt to be.”

“Fuck you. Come near him again and-“

“And I’ll end up like my sister? I don’t think so. My son will come to me by himself and little by little. And I’ll have gifts for him, not rejection.”

“I’ll repeat myself then too. Getting near him will be your end.”

“You should talk. Look how stupid you get when it comes to him. In a way, I should take credit for this situation. Dhestroyer, my son, slowly bringing you to your death. From abstinence, possessiveness, despair or plain stupidity, I don’t care as long as you’re gone. And you will be. You think you’re a god, but this stunts you pull will dry you.”

It leaves you with the sound of a satisfied laughter and you allow yourself to fall to your knees. You do feel weak.

You sleep through the flight, hundreds of miles too much for you to consider dematerializing.

You dream of Butch.

*

He holds you tied by the arms in your penthouse. He tortures you to set you free. The emptier you feel the more pain and rage and pity fills him. You can’t stand it. So you wake up when he covers you on the bed, intent on leaving and you catch his arm.

“Stay.”

“I was going to call Jane.”

You trace the veins on his inner arm and take hold of his bicep. His eyes are unfocused, betraying the turmoil inside. A weak pull and he’s close to you, so close.

“Stay,” whispered, like a prayer in the night.

For a second he considers it, resists your pull. You don’t have control of your face showing emotion and it must say something, show something. Because a growl escapes him and he’s pushing you into the mattress, both hands gripping your head, your hair, your neck. The pressure of his body is grounding and you take hold of him, accept his weight, as he kisses every patch of the skin he cleaned and finds in his frenzy.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he begs and the absurdity of it, of him asking forgiveness from you, makes you smile, makes your chest inflate, pushing into his, as he seeks new places to invade with his mouth. Your ear, your cursed temple, the hollow of your neck, the vein that pumps blood into your brain. He stops his mouth but lets his rough hand explore the arch of your eyes, the curve of your nose, the line of your cheek bone.

“Forgive me.”

You don’t take your eyes away from his. He looks at you and sees inside you. A finger comes closer to your lips and you open them to capture it. He lets it slip inside a little, and you have to retreat into yourself, the whole universe on the tip of his wet finger. 

He kisses you. Slowly, like you’re made of smoke and silk. Like you’re frail. You hate it and you grab hold of his neck, pull hard, smashing into his tender lips.

He’s not afraid. Doesn’t speed up. Doesn’t change the pace. He learns the cartography of your tongue, then of the upper lip, the lower, with small tentative licks, feather light touches of lips and tongue. You open for him and this is not surrender, this is victory. The feel of him inside you, the pressure, the warmth.

You want to stop and tell him to do it again, that jump of impossible distance between him being there next to you and being inside you.

How could you miss it? How can you know how to replicate it if you didn’t see him come into you? What is the correct sequence, what are the percentages? How much do you push inside his space, how much does he come to meet you? How can this be-

“Stop thinking,” he asks in between licking your earlobe and biting your lip. “I need you here,” he demands as he places a trembling hand on your chest and scratches at your skin as if it’s in the way.

 “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he breathes and makes _you_ forget to.

 You know what _you’re_ doing. You rehearsed it. Over and over.

And you take over, because where this leads is sex and you can’t stop enough to tell him, to ask him, to give him or yourself time to retreat. 

*

“It’s just a dream, V.”

You wake up to blinding white and bird songs. Payne is there, standing tall, her sad look a wakeup call like no other. 

“It shouldn’t be. And you should stay out of my head,” you retort like a spoiled child.

“He’s not yours to posses, no matter what you believe and what you want. You can’t take him, you can’t have him. Even if now he has nothing.”

“He’ll have _me_.”

“If he wants you. If he chooses to have you near again. Then yes. But what you did…”

“I thought it was for the best.”

“He refused to let Marissa feed from him because he fought like a madman after you left. And he lived with the contamination. He believed he was toxic to her. Nourishment was available to her and him both, but he became weaker as days went by because he couldn’t feed if she didn’t.

In the beginning he could fight and he spent the days outside her room, refusing to see her in his state, repenting from his foolishness. When Wrath restricted him from the streets, he didn’t argue. He was too weak to, anyway.”

“And you tell me this why?”

“I tried to heal them. I tried to keep Marissa healthy and Butch alive. But it drained me. What he has is not physical.”

“I can’t be made responsible for it. I tried to do the right-“

“The right thing? Oh, no. Staying by his side in this even if it destroyed you was the only right thing to do. Like you did until that day. I can feel you, brother mine. From the moment I returned I felt you and your longing for him. But you resisted. I always believed you were the stronger one. And it always made me sad, because I know what constructed that strength.”

“I got tired.”

“Tired of having a mate and your Brothers and a sister? Oh, the sacrifice...”

“Cut the condescending tone. You have no idea how it is to … settle. Settle for a quiet hour instead of a good all night sleep; settle with moments of oblivion between uncontrollable visions of death. Settle for comfortable love instead of… _this thing I feel_! Instead of taking, like you all did and still do.”

“You can’t blame us for something he chose and you lost.”

“I’m not! Can’t you see? I left because I wanted to take him! I wanted to make him MINE. I waited and waited and I couldn’t wait anymore. I thought I was going to murder his child. I really fucking believed it when I saw it. Because if I can’t stand the thought of his blood in someone as nourishment, how could I conceive the thought of his blood combined with hers in a young? Can’t you understand?! I left to stop myself!”

“I thought I lost you when you let yourself be consumed by light. I knew you lost yourself and I accepted your decision to leave and try to find what was left. But you took him away with you. He’s not yours, but the tragedy is that neither of you seems to completely understand it.”

“How long do I have?”

“What do you expect you can do?”

“I want him to live. Whatever it takes.”

“Look inside of you and tell me, tell yourself the truth. What will you do once you have him alive in front of you? Lock him inside the Pit? Because without her he’ll be like Thor was. Tie him inside your Penthouse? Because after what you did he’ll reject you.”

You know with the same clarity that haunts your actions that if Marissa is gone maybe his soul will go too. Would you have him like that?  Broken?

Yes. Yes you would. 

“What will you do to keep him alive?”

“I’ll claim him.”

She covers her face with strong life giving hands and behind them she speaks.

“That’s why you can’t come back. And that’s why you can’t save him from this pain. And you can’t replace or save Marissa. Or his young. You can’t do anything until you see he’s not yours. He’s his own male. And right now, he needs to want life on his own, not to be forced to live for another.”

“I’m still coming back.”

“I’m not here to stop you.”

“Why are you here then?”

“To lower your expectations. You’ll come back to Brothers you abandoned and to a broken Butch. Oh, and where is Jane?”

“I’ll fix it. Him,” you reply, the only thing you can answer to.

“No, you won’t. I pray you understand and accept this.”

*

Clarity and purpose feel good when determination stands beside them. You want to get beside him, hold him, keep him safe. You know the old Butch is gone. But you don’t care. You’re not the same either. You have to ask forgiveness, yes, but not for murder. You have a chance for him to give it to you. Eventually. Whatever his decision, he needs you and you are not the one that destroyed him, so he’ll accept you.

Just when you think you have the peace of mind necessary to face him, a splitting heartache leaves you breathless. You can feel him. You’re close enough.

*

As soon as the plane lands you’re outside the gates of the mansion. You laugh at the absurdity of it all. You were able to walk in daylight but you can’t dematerialize inside next to him.

Payne is wrong. You two have something. Something twisted and wrong because it involved hurting others. But right if you consider it in the silence and comfort of a moment where just you two exist. Like in the penthouse. Yes, it was a dream, but also it could have been a reality. If not for others. If not for you. 

 And you know that even if he loses her, you’ll bring him back. You’ll keep him sane. You’ll give yourself to him and that small part of him that wants you back will hang on tight to the possibility of life and love. You’ll force him to go on by putting yourself at his mercy. Perverse method of coercion, but worth it. Just until the shock passes. Then, you’ll take him, have him, whatever the costs now, it doesn’t matter.

“You look like a stray dog trying to break into a house, my man.”

Lassiter stands high on the wall, grinning down at you, the motherfucker.

“And you look like a useless guard mutt.”

“I have my purpose.”

“How about you tell me another time. I have someplace to be.”

“What’s the hurry now? She’s dead, your man’s not moving from her side and the young she carries will follow her into the Fade as soon as they unplug the wires. Chill, take a break, all that day walking must have been exhausting. Besides, I have the distinct feeling you’re the last face he wants to see now. If ever.”

You ignore his last words but focus on his first.

“Will they fight me?”

“I’d say yes.”

“Will you?”

“Considering the fact that I lost the element of surprise…”

“What’s the point in me talking to you then?”

“Yeah, that. I almost forgot, admiring your supercharged self.”

And just like that he jumps at you, a huge soothing shadow. As soon as you collide, you’re on the Other Side again.

*

Marissa is looking at you.

“You warned me when you left. I know you left to protect us. Me. I’m sorry for the constant pain you felt. But he was mine and I was his and it was always his choice. And yours.”

“I know. But he’s mine also. I’m his too. And I’m here to tell him that he still has something.”

“This is what you say. But is he yours? Are you his? You chose for him and he suffered. You’ll choose for him again? Are you ready to live with the responsibility?”

“There are no more choices to be made.”

“And if I say to you there is one left? Will you listen to me, warrior? Will you give this to me, to him, in exchange for everything?”

As you listen to her, you feel warmth on your temple and hand. Crawling vines, reaching for each other, pulling on your blood and skin like hardened mud breaking apart from movement.

“I want you to deliver my child.”

The request is absurd biologically. The young is not fully developed at 14 months.

“I trust you can save Butch if enough time passes. I trust you can have him, if you wait long enough. I trust you can make him live after this, even if I go, even if our child goes. But I don’t want you to. I want you to give up that possibility and save his daughter.”

“I…”

The warmth on your entire cursed side transforms into an itch. Blood thickens and runs biting into your veins at every micron.

“I want you to face him and choose not to help him cope. Use all you have and are to save our child. Not because I ask. Not because you love him. But because he needs her more than he needs you, even if he doesn’t know it yet. Even if you cannot accept it. You cannot say anything other than yes.”

“You are very certain.”

“As certain as I was of the fact that I wanted to talk to you and not him before I left for the Fade. So, what do you say, warrior?”

She waits. It feels like waking up even if this is partly a dream. It feels like destiny choking you. It feels like punishment. It feels like a curse, like the one that now stands written on your entire side, black letters carved into your tendons, muscles and flesh, from temple to ribs to hand, to groin, a canvas with messed up characters that burn and carve you.

Pain is good. Physical pain you can handle. The change on your body means little and you have no time to interpret the point of it. But the implications of what she asks…

“I have to give him up. Again. I did so much giving up,” you plead and you hate that you have to sound like a needy bitch. Worst of all, in from of Marissa. A dead Marissa. After what you thought was your final act of selflessness.

“Do you really feel love?” she interrupts your string of thought and amazes you as she reaches and touches the cursed glowing hand. Holds it.

“I know you do. It’s not giving him up. It’s giving him all. Can’t you see? It’s giving him the chance to be happy.”

You catch the small ethereal hand, remove it from contact with your skin and distance yourself from her.

“Am I not enough?”

You think you see her catch a tear as she confesses.    

“ _I_ wasn’t.”

She smiles a smile that doesn’t wrinkle the skin around her eyes. She turns for what you know is the last time. Follows the light that waits for her.  Before the light completely engulfs her, she laughs, a sound so alive it’s hard to believe a fading soul could produce.

“I know I won’t see my daughter in the Fade. But I rejoice at the thought.”

Maybe she does have that certainty, but it’s above your limits of knowledge, power or promises.

Still, you ask, because there seems to be no other thing to say to the female that had him.

“What do you want to call her?”

“Ava. I like Ava.”


	9. Chapter 9

  When you appear to them, blinding light contained under a black robe, they wait for the Scribe Virgin. You wait for nothing. 

They see contained power and intrusion, but you feel like silence bottled up in a scarred body, lighting up the universe.

Removing the hood of the robe from your face, you take in every one of them, grim faces, distorted even more by incredulity and even rage.

“How did you…”

Old familiar looks and some younger ones, united in a sacred vow to protect their own. To them, you are a threat, an outsider trespassing into a place they call safe and kill to keep it that way.

Zsadist is already armed, body tense and beautifully trained on taking you off, light or no light, miracle or no miracle. You chose well. The note you left with him said:

_We both bear marks. And both mean slavery. What you felt I feel. See me again and set me free from it. Or I will destroy you all._

Rhage stops him from jumping to his purpose, a strong hand grounding the warrior, electric blue eyes sad and accusing focused on yours. It’s nothing you don’t know. But right now, there is only one thing you need to find. And it’s not permission.

“I have to see him.”

In the hailstorm created by their combined thoughts, memories and accusations, you focus on a singular shouted reality: the black, blank space where you feel your cop.

They will not let you pass. They will not let you see him. Unless…

You bow your head in front of them all and speak the Old Language, because they need to know you’re at least part of the species if not part of the Brotherhood.

“Wrath, you would do me an honor to allow me to call you my king and accept the rythe I offer.”

There is a pause in the bombardment of thoughts and then the images are projected to you like a tsunami wave. Things they all consider you should endure to come back, things you deserve for leaving like you did, for coming back like this and now.

“Rhage, you would do me an honor to allow me to call you my brother and accept the rythe I offer.”

You don’t wait for them to say something because you feel everything in the way the temperature changes, you hear it in the gasps; you smell it in the air.

 “Zsadist, you would do me an honor to allow me to call you my brother and accept the rythe I offer. Phury, you would do me an honor to allow me to call you my brother and accept the rythe I offer.”

You go on and on, until every single name carved in stone in the Tomb, some by your hand, are offered the right to rectify your wrong doing.

“We all accept your offer. I accept in their name, as your King. Do you hear me? If you want us to give you our permission to stand next to our Brother, you’ll be the first to receive the rythe from so many.”

You know it’s partly a deception, this ritual you offer. But you have to get to him and after so much other things this seems and feels like a well repaid lie. 

“You honor me. I’ll present myself to you all. But _after_ I see him survive this.”

“V…I can’t guarantee _you_ will survive.”

“I don’t care.”

*

Sepulchral silence chokes the sense of reality out of the room.

She lays there, motionless, thin as the air but impossibly beautiful, like she always is. Was. Almost like you saw her. The swell of her 14 months pregnancy shows through the sheet. The irreversibility of her fate shows on the monitors.

One would imagine screams and blood and people rushing, in frenzy, here and there, a carousel of inutility mounting to some meaning.

You could expect bruised knees, torn fingernails and fallen hair, all evidence of souls using bodies they reside in to unearth an answer, the reason, the peace they lost forever.

One would be prepared to see tears…at least tears.

All you see is her frail pale eyelids consuming consciousness and his blank, dead stare. Death inside as you reach in his mind. No hope.

You go to him but his eyes are lost in the space, the universe that consists of her. The pull of her gravity stronger the colder she becomes. No one saw Tohr after he found out about Wellsie. But to be a witness to this, to see him like this…

You shed the tears in his place.

You bruise your knees in his name, as you fall, heavy, and crawl to his side, clawing at the floor to pick up his meaning to live and pulling at your hair when you find nothing left.

You hug his legs as he stands there, as inanimate as the chair, tall as a titan, helpless as a child. You inhale him, the scent telling the story of a male that hasn’t left his dying mate not even for a second. You are so little compared to this. You are nothing.

You kiss the abdomen that you used to heal.

“All I deserve, it seems, is to be like this in front of you. On my knees.”

Nothing. Not recognition, not rejection, not even breath, as if he tries to borrow his to her, take from him to give to her, life transferred, life saved.

But then he catches your nape, a hand as heavy as a life sentence, so different from the hand that pulled you into a desperate dream kiss. He doesn’t look at you.

“Bring her back to me and I’ll stand to have you near me.”

*

Manello comes in and you face him, standing again, taking in his expression, the shred of hope, the solution, and his brother’s salvation.

You acknowledge and appreciate his bed manners as he starts to recite her chart to you.

Rejection of nourishment in the last 2 months, complications, rejection of the fetus, too advanced of a stage to save her, too early to get the baby out and hope at least one of them will get better. He quotes statistics, numbers, interventions and solutions tried already by him, Jane, Payne and even Havers, him coming every day now. His presence a too late reconciliation.

 You know everything already, but you let him talk because you look in his voice for something similar to Butch. A vowel or a sound, something to erase the words he said to you.

“She passed a couple of hours ago. The baby’s heart is still supported by machines. But...” the rest becomes a blur. He sounds nothing like Butch. And maybe Butch will never sound like himself ever again. The thought alone is enough to make you dive into the Kubler-Ross pattern.

He will never be yours, love you or want you. And he’ll be blind, by choice, when you _do_. And you do.

But without you and everything that you are…he can’t be at all. So you bless this perverse connection between your lives. You curse your loneliness. And you make the decision.

“Get him out,” you plead, because Butch is a contained fire, silent against your burning back and he expands, pushed further and further by his mates’ complete and forever silence.

“We tried to get her away. And the baby out. He’s in a catatonic state. But when we try to remove him from this room or do something to her, he just takes out his dagger and points it to his heart. We monitor the room to be sure he doesn’t-“

“The leave me.”

“My man, you should come-“

“I said walk the fuck out!!! And get Wrath in here.”

You don’t wait to see if your command is obeyed. The lingering state of deity helps in making you blind to everything else.

You take his face into your hands, willing your light to bring him back to you for only a second, for you to speak this sentence.

The one thing that, beyond him ever wanting you back and not being completely hers, will haunt him, but it will also save his soul: hate.

In this, you are the judge and executioner.

“I want you to look at me, cop. One last time, true? See me one last time.”

He looks beyond you, through you and it makes you alone, forgotten and small. So you kiss his lips and you use the distraction to get his dagger.

“I’m sorry,” and you strike.

*

The blood drips from the dagger.

Butch jumps.

The door is smashed to pieces.

You search.

Butch bites and tears apart, fangs deep into your jugular and the perfect sharpness of them makes it almost a kiss and acknowledgement. It’s not. It’s just killer instinct and incredible pain.

The Brotherhood stands there in terror, filling the space of this restrictive universe, trying to decide if the killer is you, dagger cutting into Marrissa’s uncovered belly, like a butcher, or Butch, ripping open your flesh, an animal trying to protect what is his.

Salty tears and iron blood create the sea you drown in; your heart pumps unending reserves into the gushing wounds that should have ended you. Over and over.

“Let him kill me or allow me to try and save the young!” you curse.

You feel her. And you feel your end.

*

You saw a monk once carrying a bird fetus. Smashed, fallen from the mountain nest.

You saw him give life back. Days and days of unnatural life, breathed into a body unfit for existence.

You learned the monk’s language.

You adapted to his customs and rituals.

You couldn’t learn that small act of salvation. You can’t maintain life from complete peace of spirit.

But you can try to give life from utter determination.

*

You hear a dog wail and… no, it’s you, mourning him and her and you.

“I need your blood,” you manage to say to the King as Marissa’s blood makes it slippery and sickly and gruesome in the crowded room.

Manello may be screaming the baby is not developed enough.

Mary is shouting something that sounds like “Let him say his goodbye.”

And a muffled cry from someone can be interpreted like “You should have never come back.”

And in a corner, someone thinks “ _Don’t let him live without you too.”_

But Wrath makes the incredible decision to help and is using all his strength to keep Butch away from you. Any other circumstance, you realize, and you’d really hate that. Yeah, to put it mildly. But you need to live enough to do this and your cops’ stare is turned wild, limbs disconnected from reason and kicking, turning, trying.

“Get away from her. Let her be! Stay away! I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!!!”

And you do feel it, death at his hands, slowly immersing yourself in peace and transferring your light…as you take out, in trembling, red hands, the still, bloody meat conglomerate that couldn’t possibly be a baby, quiet and small and so absolutely precious to you.

“Save him,” you whisper to her little ear and you bite the young and start to ingurgitate her blood, in gulps, like a desert, like a burning planet, like a vision.

The sweet, violent red blood of Marissa … with traces of your Dhestroyer. Your light starts to burn the bed, and the body on it and the young skin. They step away frightened, disgusted, foreign.

Crouched like a deformity of evil and involution, you illuminate the body you hold, every vein empty of blood and filled with your curse.

“When I leave her, feed her your blood! All of it if you have to. Swear to me!”

“V…“

“Would you rather have _me_ dead or do you _all_ want to die. Swear to me you’ll get your blood in her!”

Phury and his twin take over holding Butch, who fights close to ripping the skin away from his body to get to his fading mate. But Marissa is not there anymore. No body to bury, no ashes to preserve and mourn over. You slowly disintegrate everything along with yourself.

“I swear V. I’ll try.”

You can’t look at your cop. One look and your light will want to save him, not the baby.

As you slowly burn yourself on this metaphorical stake of redemption, you try to protect them all and crush into the further wall. Combusting.

The King slashes his wrist and waits for the transfer of the young, still motionless in the cocoon of light offered by you.

The last things you see as you lay down and crush the small hope against your decaying body are the burned clothes and skin of three warriors that struggle to contain a beast.

The beast is not Rhage.


	10. Chapter 10

When you wake up, you wonder why. And where. And then why again. It’s quiet inside your head, but the suffocating sensation of being deprived of your “gift” doesn’t follow. 

Something warm and wet trails a line on your left arm. On instinct, you try to remove the hand from the foreign object, so it won’t burst into flames. And as you pull, the wet and warm becomes obviously heavy, restless and not at all in flames.

“I think he’s waking up. Be careful,” you hear and turn towards the sounds, skin cracking and splitting open from the movement.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

And you comply, because it seems like a good idea.

“How can we call her? We should name her or...”

You could try to restart your brain or your body for that matter, but just standing there, hearing voices that are not only in your head and feeling warm is good.

“I’ll take her now,” the voice announces and the previous instinct is replaced by another. You position your body so it protects the warm pressure on your arm and move the shoulder inwards, as to cover it all, a cocoon of Vishous over a small but definite point of “TO NOT BE TOUCHED”.

“V, she wants food. Oh yes you do, you little hungry bunny, come here, come on, leave uncle V to rest. Stop that, come now, yummy blood awaits. Yummmm!”

As the voice changes into weird, child like coos and mumbles, you release the squirming bundle. And you open your eyes to the sight of a baby nibbling at the small finger of your cursed hand, with little fangs covered in blood and drool.

*

It’s usually Rhage who takes her and brings her back. Sometimes Mary, but the blond warrior is always there, a little off key and always watching you. Partly because he’s Mary’s shadow, mostly because you suspect he suspects …you. It remains a suspicion. He never says, you never ask.

You don’t ask much of anything. Not how it is possible for you to have survived, not how _she_ was, not even how he…

Things happen around you and your little universe consisting of four walls decorated in a style that echoes Darius. Familiar and foreign. Like your own body, recovering, they say, from burns, exhaustion and something like disintegration.

There are 25 paces from the bed to the bathroom. 13 to the dressing. 5 to the window. You don’t know how many to the door. You _do_ wander how many to the Pit.

There are 2 cracks in the ceiling and absolutely no stain on the walls. There are 10 lights. And when she’s in the room, there are 11.

*

You don’t know how time passes. The ritual of feeding the baby is not a relevant measuring scale to you because…you know jack shit about baby feeding intervals.

Now she’s there on your chest, contrasting patch of milky white skin against your still expanding tattoo, and then she’s not there and you raise the mostly darkened arm, use its fingers to trace the new patterns of the curse now shifted into something like a saga.

From your temple to behind the ear, then on your neck, collarbone, chest, nipple, rib by rib descending to the abdomen, lower and to the hidden sensible skin on your femoral triangle and lastly around your genitalia. There are 25 paces from the bed to the bathroom.

*

Women of the house come and go, never alone and never to take her themselves, but giving advices and asking questions, harder than your calculations, so very hard to answer.

Especially when you don’t talk.

They look at you strangely at the end, as they go, hand over their hearts, peculiar body language that you cannot be bothered to interpret. 

“Her name is Ava,” you say once to the one that happened to drop the bottle and hurries to leave.

The little one says nothing.

Except from when she screams her little lungs out and you try everything from daggers to a feather from one of Beth’s dresses or a new piercing that you steal from Z. Until Mary catches you and gives you a lecture on what a small child can play with.

Rhage nearly gives himself a stroke watching you react and then remains suspended in a pose of incredulity, because you comply without argument.

After that she’s left with your pinky finger of your cursed hand, your glove and she likes you old Red Sox cap, so you declare, illogically, that she takes that from her father.

It all becomes a strangely comforting and immensely clumsy ritual of taking care of a fragile creature that can’t be separated from you, they say, and you don’t even understand. She was supposed to be, at some point, your victim and now feels like your only connection to him.

You learn to live and walk day by day, as she will someday do. Giving her the bottle they bring, resisting the urge to perform a chemical analysis of the content. Deciphering the Whaaaaaa and Mhmmmmm and Coooooo like you would an old parchment.

Sometimes it’s not her who does the screaming. And from what you learn from her you know if a scream means pain, hunger of rage.

You miss him like hell.

But you hate him a little bit too.

*

The King comes eventually. He doesn’t ask when, you don’t ask how. You hope he’ll spare you from actually formulating words, but he starts with the only subject you feel compelled to approach.

“You should go see him. Soon. As soon as you can.”

“Is he safe?”

“He’s not going to off himself. And he’s not going anywhere. But he should see her. Know about her. And he should see you. Get him to talk and feed.”

“If someone takes her to him, it’ll be me.”

“I’m not saying otherwise, just that …”

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” even if you’re not ready to count over 25 paces.

*

You limp, burdened with her little body in your arms, to the entrance of the tunnel and then stop there because … because.

 “Your father is out there,” you say to her. She smiles at you, catches the finger you point with and you think that her little fat hands should be enough to pull Butch back. 

“You’re like a walking incubator. That procedure was…I…I didn’t think it was possible. But then again, you’re…you. And she’s…she’s something else, man...,” Manello says from the hall and then hovers over your shoulder. He thinks he’s being subtle. You know he checks on you.

“Can you get Mary here for me?”

“You want to…”

“Yes.”

You’ll go to him, because you have no idea how long it’s been and if you’re alive is to see him. But you’re not taking her in. Not yet.

*

The tunnel is darkness.

The door opens to another combination and it takes you two minutes to find it.

At least your brain works. Slowly but still…

The Pit is darkness.

His bedroom door opens to the image of an equally haunted and haunting memory. Butch is not there.

He’s in _your_ room.

He’s asleep and so far away in his mind that he doesn’t even feel you, not even as an enemy.

The tunnel is 200 paces long. They all feel like kicks in the gut.

But he lives. And he lives in your room.

Why? Do you hope? Does it matter?

You leave without saying or receiving a word.

*

Every day, just as the shutters come down, you travel the length of the tunnel.

When you hear screams, you whisper in her ear something in the Old Language and you get back to the other end, far enough to keep her asleep, close enough to feel him even without using your powers.

When there is silence, you settle there on the floor, hair in your lowered eyes, lips tight together. You stay outside the door and let her baby noises fly.

Day after day after day, until time is measured in how heavy she becomes.

*

“Did you tell him about her?”

“I tried,” the King exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Thing is we had to keep him locked inside. For his own good. Phury and Z secured the Pit that night. He lives, we know that. But more…”

And _you_ know your next visit is tonight, after you put her to sleep.

“You should feed too,” someone offers as they lay the clean sheets.

Voices are background noise to you as they are to her.

“Where is Jane” is sometimes whispered around the corners. It’s just voices and never touches. They don’t move you from purpose.

You hear destruction from the other side of the Pit’s door. Even from the other side of the tunnel. The occasional kick in the walls and door of your cop’s confinement make it past the distance easily than you do.

And when it stops, halfway there, and you hear silence, it scares you like nothing should be allowed to.

*

“You’re alive.”

 “Yes.”

“You were impersonating the Big Bang the last time I saw you.”

“I didn’t think you cared, cop.”

“I didn’t at the time. You had holes in you to prove that point. Doesn’t matter now. Get out. I’m not sure I can ignore you again. Not now, knowing that you’re real.”

He moves closer to where the couch was, now upside down near the wall and he sits there, head on his knees. 

“I’m not intending to be ignored this time.”

“And what _is_ your intention, V?”

“I want to feed you.”

The scent he throws chills the blood in your veins.

“And if I want something else?”

“I’ll give you more than you ask.”

“I asked you to save Marrissa.”

“Marrissa was gone when I got here.”

“Good timing. Did you calculate it?”

“Fuck you, cop.”

“I think I’ll pass,” he bites on the words and the look he gives you writes regret and anger. For you it’s just the memory of his lazy smile as you kissed the inside of his thigh after you released his cock.

“I’m bringing someone to feed you tonight.”

He gets up, itching for something, buzzing with it, steps closer, deadly moves lagged by hunger and grief.

“Can you imagine how it will make me feel after...”

“Yes.”

You face him head to toe, daring him to say no, to say it’s not the same, to challenge you, to respond. He does.

“Then how can you expect me to do it?”

And you respond too.

“I don’t. I hate it. But I can’t give it to you and you need strength to hold your young.”


	11. Chapter 11

It was almost morning and you were chased by lessers and sunrise. But you were laughing. And laughter sounded like something strange you think you hear late at night, from the shadows, and instead of running for your life, you feel compelled to poke at it, discover it and call it by a name.

It’s such a distant memory that sometimes you think twice about the context, you make connections, recall the whole day. From when you kissed her to when you wanted to kiss him. You rewind the minutes because you can and because it’s so much like a lie you could tell yourself over and over until you convince yourself that you, indeed, have lived.

*

They surround you and take you to the Tomb in complete silence, like a Stonehenge of solid ghosts leading to sunrise. The Rhite should include Butch. He should be there because he’s a Brother. Because he’s been offended. Because you long for his revenge more than you do for his forgiveness. Like with his initiation, when you wanted him to bear your mark on his skin more than you wanted to have his blood.

He should walk among them, your solid proof of fatherhood and oh, your only relief, but most of all, because you want him to touch you again and prove he’s here still.

Breath in, breath out. Focus, Scream. _Come to me._

You follow them, a shadow, barely leaving a trace behind. Only a murder, a betrayal and the sick heart that never fully made you alive. But also her.

Thinking, strangely, with the calm of a bruise, that the culmination of your life was the moment when he took Ava into his arms. How you forgot to worry, how you believed in him to not break her, even if she fitted, fragile, inside the cradle of his two hands. How you swore to yourself to never let anyone take her away from him, not even you. And how you felt like fading, slowly, erased from memory, presence and existence, by something he deserved to hold. Unlike you, something beautiful and worth of him. _His._

Breath in, breath out. Focus, Scream. _Come to me._

You smile, small creases faking a sense of age, when really it’s just your camouflage breaking under the marvel of a movement you almost forgot. They look at you, turning hooded heads; darken eyes, brothers you forced to shed blood, in a strange ritual that you could stop at any time. But it’s about honor and family, unwritten laws above even the Scribe Virgin. They have to break you into little pieces so they can wish they’d stop. You have to be nearly gone for them to see and decide if they want you back. Then, only then they’ll stop. So you don’t.

Ruble and dirt under your feet, cold as the vodka you forgot the taste of and the space Ava left you on when she claimed her father.

Breath in, breath out. Focus, Scream. _Come to me._

*

You’re different.

You knew it when you tried to tap into his mind and didn’t feel him feel something.

After days on end of void, or worse, showed desperation, you crave for a feeling felt in him. You crawl inside his skin with your mind, an intrusion you never let yourself make before now, not so violently, not so desperate. And you feel nothing. No even yourself reaching. And as he stands there petrified in the face of the impossible, you do too.

You’re different.

*

Can this be your own personal messianic road to ... resurrection? No, that order of events is all screwed, because you already made your divine appearance from the light. But you came empty, your light gone and mind smothered under layers upon layers of silence, skin not putrid but buried under symbols that curse, warn and color you black.

The mouth of the Tomb inhales you and you wish they could just tell you what they think around you. Not knowing is maddening. Caring and wanting to know, even more so.

Breathe in, breathe out. Focus, Scream. _Come to me._

There is no answer, no roaring Dhestroyer coming to …to what? Save you, stand for, you, destroy you? And you know, with the clarity of a god, that, under your marked skin and hardened meat and behind your wet eyes, you’re completely …normal.

_*_

You’re different.

You see it when, terrified he’ll get well, he’ll want to fight again and maybe, maybe, if he accepts you, you’ll have to heal him. And you think about that light you curse and curses you, about his skin thirsty for it and not cursed by it, his body opening up for you.

As you start building up the wish, the need to pour it out, you come up empty. Your cursed hand a freak, with intricate designs and warnings, but otherwise just a warm hand. Bitten pinkie.

You’re different. There is no light and no visions and no voices and no power other than the excruciating pulse of your recovering muscles.

You’re different. You’re normal.

*

They tremble like the flames, angry and mourning, and they each look you in the eyes to ask something. The questions write themselves in smoke columns on the walls, silent and defeated by time, like the names you carved in the stone, just to your right.

Something cold makes tentative touches on your warm, normal hand, bound to your back and powerless, and the hairs at your nape stand up, followed, disgracefully, by your genitals. Memories of days and dreams back when you were Vishous.

The scene is choreographed without you, and your vanity shouts that you’re the lead star here, you always were and fuck it if you regret to think it. More so, you regret not making it about you sooner. Taking when wanting. Claiming when challenged. 

_Come to me_

“Brothers, we are here to fight in the most perverted battle. We fight one that was our own. We fight against one unarmed. We fight to redeem, but the possibility is that we’ll fight and kill. The Scribe Virgin stays quiet and our family is crippled. We have to be strong today, for our unity, even in this, will carry us to survival.”

Given their strength and weapons, the immediate distance and your stance, you estimate 4 blows will suffice. Yeah, and you smile thinking you can still calculate deadly impact force, even if you can’t light your last hand rolled with your hand. Go V!

Blood is red and it screams. You didn’t hear Hollywood saying “I forgive you!”.Butch can’t hear you call. Self-sacrifice doesn’t sound like such a good idea now. Not when you’ll die in the dark instead of light, asking forgiveness instead of creating it and unheard by the only one who ever listened and understood.

_Cop..._

Red fills black, feels loud and warm. A monster cries on your shoulder, asking forgiveness and you smile, crazy with need for him to be another and yet happy someone is.

“Hang on V! Live through this, you bastard! You’re the mothefucker who never asks How high and you walked into the light…so Live! Do you hear me? LIVE!”

And then he’s drawn back by strong arms, as another shadow takes his place, moving slow and unperceivable, the equinox itself, an equal, the executioner by your own words. He glides rather than move, the never completed discussion about pain you two were meant to have lingering in his darkness and determination.

“Z.” The rest of the sentence said _Take care of him, and of Ava and never let him out of the house and kill, kill, kill every cold or warm body that touches him_ , but you asked enough from your king and from them and Butch doesn’t need another guard dog.

Z is all black, eyes and face and lips and when he strikes, it’s like the darkness kisses you, and licks you and then swallows you all.

 Maybe you dreamed the life you had, you’re perhaps a lesser caught and put to death by the Brotherhood, maybe you miscalculated the 4 blows needed to end you, and definitely you’re delirious when you see your cop crouched above you, glorious fangs bared and screaming.

_“Mine…”_


	12. Chapter 12

From blood they took you, in blood they should leave you. That is the story of how the Black Dagger Brotherhood came to name you Brother. And it sounds fair.

From the very first day, your silence was intelligence to them and your tattoos were evidence of power, not handicap, much like Z’s scars and Phury’s leg. How wrong they were…Your silence was isolation, fear. You spent years and years to overcome it, to try and trust again, to resemble, at least on the surface, a human being.

It took so long to step out of the cave your father sold you as the world, longer still to learn mirrors and to look at yourself without the pavlovian reaction of disgust. Or fear.

Everything you lacked, you learned. You lacked a lot, from the ability to read to being able to love. Not anymore. You know everything. Not because you were born a genius, but because you were hungry. Knowledge was freedom; it was new ideas and new ways and influence. Most of all, knowledge was your way out and in and where ever you wanted.

It wasn’t your mother that made you a demigod, it was your continuous and unstoppable search for information that made you who you are and what you are to the Brotherhood.

Rigorous discipline, forgetting or ignoring moods and needs and sticking to plans.

Yes, it took decades to learn how to learn. And decades more to learn what you like. Some more to decide what you need and centuries in between to apply them. But it bought you freedom and favors and subs. And, some may argue, the palpable aura of don’t fuck with me.

It took 700 years and your cop to think sex could and should be more than the thrill of punishment, domination, control and anonymity.

From the beginning, in this new kind of family, you chose when to speak and when you did, strangely, they considered it help. 

They offered shelter. You offered knowledge. Stock options, money savings, technology updates, when they didn’t ask why you didn’t touch anyone’s skin for 200 years.

And later, you took care of them, obsessing over security systems, communicating with the different factions of the nobility in the world, in their language and in behalf of the ones all the glymera considered no brain brutes with a kink for pain and dagger law. Oh, you showed them, didn’t you?

You showed them all. Everything from your power to your blood.

Everything but your heart.

Until now.

*

“Let them finish, cop,” you spit words and blood, because this wasn’t what you planned but you promised and he has her now and you had his words and you’re so tired… So numb and lonely and something presses on your chest and it’s not the cuts and bruises. Your skin feels so tight you can’t reach the end and the boom boom boom inside your head just _does – not - stop._

And he doesn’t listen when you ask. The knee hits you right in the puss and you fall. Silence. Blessed or damned?

Silence. You breathe.

*

A body carries you somewhere, and your feet drag across the ground, a mapping of this road, incomplete in its meaning. They can’t throw you out. Fuck, what if they do? 

“Cop, let them complete …the rhite... Butch!” you mumble, blood gurgling from your cut tongue, over the split lips, down the numb chin. “Let them do it,” and then, pathetic “I want to stay.”

“Nobody is throwing you out shithead. They all fucking treat me like I’m a precious china cup. And apparently, I marked you. So I’d say you’re safe.”

You huff, the absurdity of it all and the drama too fucking much. You’re so sick of this shit, all of it, this taking turns at being irrational and doing insane things and not meaning them.

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Why did _you_?!”

“Butch…”

“You had no reason, the timing was crap, your bed side manner needs serious work and still. I remember your mouth saying the words. Sort of. But yeah. Just after sucking me. And just before leaving.”

“I meant it,” because you did and it broke you to leave. “I still do.”

“I know, V. We’re idiots. Or in a soap opera, cause one of us is always on a death bed,” he says as you close your eyes, letting yourself taken. You don’t know if it amused or killed him to say it, but from there, the pain is quiet. 

Marked… You wonder how it went. You don’t know if it amuses or kills you, but from there, the quiet is pain.

*

“Nurse Vishous my ass. With all the sleeping you’ve got going on, you should be dubbed moss the deaf.”

You smile, rivulets cracking wide on the chapped skin of your lips and it’s the best feeling in the world.

“It’s Mos Def. And you should be the one to talk Mr. Hollywood. Wanna tell me what got you the nickname again?” Rhage ungracefully snorts and curses between wet licks, a tormented candy wrapper in his hands, music to your ears. Someone snarls at your exchange. It’s so much like _then…_ it makes you feel inevitably healed.

*

You wonder if it’s possible for eyes to decompose if you open them. Well, it’s not _eyes_ per se. You think eyes, but it’s actually ONE eye, because the other feels like a pillow was stuffed under the skin and sewed again with a rusted nail. By a blind butcher. With Parkinson’s.

All the willpower you have left is used in opening that one eye and staring at him. And when that runs out, you fucking go on and open your mouth. Yeah, because you haven’t thought that will hurt like hell. And not only your skin.

“I want you to mean it,” because yup, that is the most important thing you NEED to say right now, when you were saved from a freaking death sentence you gave yourself and Butch is letting you heal in the Pit after he claimed you in front of the Brotherhood.

He’s right there, right fucking there, with his daughter in his arms and your heart picks up and doubles its beats and so what if you have your mouth open, no air comes in anyway, and yeah, definitely, you want to let him know you WANT him to mean it.

Do you actually know that he lied when he said it? Yes. There was a time when you were convinced the lie was that he doesn’t want you. But now, how could he?

He looks to the side, towards you, the cinematic quality of the scene still there, a John Woo kind of slow motion. It may be him, but you bet it’s you and your bashed in brain.

“You can take it back. They can’t fucking believe a word of it, anyway.”

He comes over, one step at the time, one movement after the other, predator mixed with unknowing hunter, with a hint of deity and so much more humanity.

“You _should_ ,” then leaves your lips, like you would give car shopping advices.

He stops in front of the couch but it’s like he’s not entirely there and it bugs you. That boom boom boom is back along with the weight on your chest, an iron, ill fitted shirt from hell.

“No,” he whispers close to your lips and then backs away again, stripping away your last ounce of air.

The small bundle in his arms corners you with her eyes over his shoulder and then her fat little hands beg for you when he doesn’t know what to do with your awake presence anymore. The plan, apparently, went only that far.

If only you could process what happened just now.

He stands there, tall, head tilted to the side, considering things you can no longer reach in his mind.

“ _I_ decide now. Everything.”

 He looks and looks, green and brown wonders, unmoving lips, tight arms, the whole of him, intoxicating.

*

You get off the couch eventually when you expect roots are just about to sprout.

Rhage is a mountain of relief. If you think about it, a whole geography of landscapes fills the mansion. Whrath is a sea, the Sea of tranquility from the Moon, as he observes your passing by, incomplete cycles of rising and adjusting.

Phury is the green hills, those you imagine Ireland is made of, that are there for you but they let you go and pass untouched. No safety net, no crutches, just beautiful eyesight, calm and fresh kissed by white pure liquid fogs, running toward the decomposing marshes. The façade of his twin. Z. The one who lingers, shadowed and heavy, leaving no hope that you can escape un-lost and unpunished. You meet him head on, always, but both your faces are hidden and words will bury you knees deep in something cold and unresolved.

Tohrment makes the woods, all of the clearings, all of the wild, all of the whisper and paths not walked by others. Blay and Qhuinn are meeting in the point at the violent end of the cliff facing the shoreline. Corroded but still inevitably falling into each other.

Phury’s son does you justice. You don’t know that kids need reassurance so you don’t say a word to him.

You don’t mind the rest. But the new faces are the only sign that this is not the past. That and the fact that you don’t wear a black glove anymore. Oh, and your constantly bitten pinky.

*

Sometimes you sleep, or maybe you just go away, your mind to revolted to stay focused.

Other times you watch him move. And you watch her cry.

Until a day when he takes your hand and gives it to Ava. Her laugh ignites your heart as she lands on your chest, already taking in your blood. The small one fidgets and ends up on her back, a patch of warm on cold.

“She can have better blood, cop. She should.”

A strong, warm hand wipes her lips and then your chest, where a red drip contrasts on your black tattooed skin.

“But I own yours,” he says, tracing a caress on the fragile head of this little creature.

He’s not loud. It’s really not quiet.  

*

Years pass and the ritual doesn’t change. Your blood feeds her, because he made it clear it feels weird for him to do it and, you think, he still believes himself unworthy.

You don’t believe you’re worthy either.

Still, this dance of need in three is both the best and the worst feeling in the world.

He calls it necessity, you call it duty.

He lies to himself, you fool yourself.


	13. Chapter 13

The hardest part is to convince her to sleep. She screams with the same intensity she feds with. Almost. Maybe she doesn’t like to be alone. Maybe she doesn’t like the darkness.

Maybe the screams translate into his name. Yours did.

But the commotion is all worth it when you see him cradle her in his long, careful, every day stronger arms. Arms that don’t touch you. Not even by mistake.

*

The old days when he was silent and you still followed are buried under layers of keep off signs. So you stand behind the door to your room, hand on door knob and you listen to him standing outside in the Pit. You can no longer tell what he thinks, does or screams in his silence.

In every crease of the bed and the confinement of the unlocked door, the room feels wrong. Your tattooed skin feels wrong when it asks and even like a bigger lie when it remains quiet. You have no plan. You see no way out.

You’re smart enough to know it’s because you’re not looking.

*

Tonight he’s gone, one of those times when you wonder and fuck, you used to love puzzles, but this is a whole new level of wtf. Because he’s out, but Ava is in her crib by the couch. He didn’t wake you, but he let her asleep there. Alone.

You can’t understand that. How can he leave her like that? How can he leave her at all? Wasn’t he afraid that she’ll - what is the worst babies do? – chew on her crib, crawl to the kitchen and set herself on fire? Was he more afraid -disgusted- of you than of that possibility?

And what the hell can he do out there? Have a night with the boys? You rub the hair at the back of your head until static makes it stand, a subtle smack back to reality, because there’s no fucking way you can, should, or have the right to be jealous, worried or judgmental.

The predator moves are engraved in you, lines over lines of training and stalking or fucking viciously and in obscene ways.

But with taking care of her, you’re a disproportionate pillar of clay, uncoordinated and numb. In another life, you could learn. In another life, you could wait for the advantage of practice. In this, you never thought you were to be given the chance to. How could you hope he’ll have the faith to leave her with you? How could you prepare for being needed? And how can you, still, imagine that he trusts you enough with his only…everything.

It’s overwhelming.

But still…where the fuck is Butch?

*

_In the dark delusions of unconsciousness, when you were honest, because you were dead, the clarity of it all was almost funny. It wasn’t destiny, blood drive, biology or even fixation that made you think about his name whenever your heart beat. It was him. And the simple fact that sometimes, pink rainbows of joy and excruciating fluffy angst happened to bad boys too._

_It was him… and everything happened just because you liked him. A lot. Still do._

_*_

You didn’t even check for your Toys until now. But Ava sleeps the sleep of the dead - aha, that’s a vampire joke, fuck, you’re really twitchy, aren’t you? – so you go over to the workstation for a little finger jogging.

And just by chance the first thing you pull up is the cop’s signal. You don’t have a phone anymore, dead folks do that selection process of I need, I don’t need. But grieving vampires should still have theirs.

As you continue to talk shit, as to cover the sound of a tip tap crime, one thing strikes you and renders you quiet.

Ava starts to scream.

You run out the door and you don’t think oh geez, it’s the first time in weeks since you’re recovering. You don’t think Ava cries, you don’t close the computers, cause it’s evidence you care. Duh.

Not even one “what the fuck am I going to say to the first person I run into” thought comes into your mind.

But that last one gets an answer soon enough-

“Give me your fucking phone!”

Because as you walk through the vestibule door, Qhuinn makes like wall and stops your advance. He doesn’t question you. He doesn’t even look funny at you. He even does you the favor of not telling you he has Butch saved in contacts when you punch in the figures of his number one by one, unforgettable.

No answer.

“Fuck, FUCK! Tell Mary to go to the Pit. Ava’s awake. And tell me who’s on rotation tonight.”

“Rhage and Ahx…ahm…a new brother.”

The phone is already ringing.

“I’ll meet you at your car in 2 min, tops,” you say to the kid and “Don’t lose sight of him!” you growl to Rhage as he starts forming Qhuinn’s name when answering.

You don’t even consider dematerializing there. It makes you even angrier.

*

It’s not that you even consider it a possibility. You don’t. Him back on the streets…

It’s not that you forgot or that you can still consider asking the King to bench him. It’s that you made a home here with him. And from your room, in the daylight, it looks painfully like that dream. The one where you stay because he wants you and he has you because you ask him to.

So this sucker punches you hard enough to forget that the right to have a say in it was never yours and most definitely not now when all you are to him is a constantly warm bottle of nurture for his child. Not entirely the worst fate. But the entirety of that dream crumbles, like paper walls set on fire, writing blackened and erased, line by line, until there is only the reality of this: You stay because he lets you and he has you because you come for free.

What the fuck have you become?

*

“It’s a recon mission. We had a sighting reported. Lesser activity. Looking like a turning centre, if you can call it that. For some time now, they do this Duracell hyped recruiting and turning -“

The static of mission facts you realize is for both your sakes. To keep him from dematerializing away from you and to keep you from killing you both. You let him go on, eyes ahead, white corneas and knuckles.

“ No idea yet what they plan. The SV is MIOS so we do this wishy-washy look and tell, hush hush stake out. The cop’s good at it so we thought-“

And that is what sets you off. Fuck reason and entitlement.

“You THOUGHT?! _You_ , as in the Brotherhood? The very ones who accepted the killer of his shellan back, and camped him in the Pit next to his child, _you_?

“V…”

“The _“you”_ who saw Thor almost off himself when left alone and then again when returned to the just perfect opportunity to be offed by the enemy “ _you”_? “

“He wouldn’t –“

“The fuck do you know?”

The supercharged ride skids dangerously from street to street, wet pavement transferring you-barely-over the corner on four wheels. And as the verbal diarrhea distracts you from the fact that you can only drive there,  you see the incredible stupid driving you do in the eyes of this kid that right about now must really hate he had the brilliant idea of taking the shorter way back to his room and bumped into you. And that you had to take his ride. Or that you just decided, tonight of all nights, to not renew your as of late, post resurrection, silence vow. 

“Ava…I mean…”

“Oh gosh, why didn’t _I_ think of that? Of course a pink little cute baby would just erase every scar on a guy. I mean, baby videos are like reverse porn, but still make you squirt fluffy clouds of happiness. Yeah, I bet a baby healed him just like that. Nevermind she came out of her dead mother’s gore fest of a womb, nevermind she’s the only known vampire to ever be born and not transition, I mean-“

“Okay man…I get it. I have no idea how this shit came to happen, but the King says jump…”

“Fucking imbeciles,” but you smile before you catch yourself, because the image of Ava struggling to bit your finger _is_ funny, not worrying, and the way Qhuinn just stays there with a hand put up and another screwed tight on the car’s handle and the right foot pumps an imaginary break is funny too and fuck, this must be vampire menopause. Whiplash mood changes and all. Or PMS.

“Okay, put it somewhere here. They’re inside that building at two o’clock.”

*

Remember when you used to plan shit? Color coded inside your brain, classification from a to z, in all known and different alphabets, from Egyptian to Latin? Routes and all possible combinations of answers to all possible groups of questions?

“Are you even ser-“ and then stars are out doing their thing in front of your eyes and your ears buzz, because the punch comes as soon as you see the white in his eyes and start running your mouth. So no, it seems you don’t remember the times when you used to plan, not how you used to make a plan or why you always, always thought it was necessary.

“Better? Now rethink the reasons that brought you here and that got you to open your pie hole, why you left Ava alone and why you seem to think I need to answer to you. And now swallow them, cause I don’t give a shit. Get back to the Pit.”

And it sounds like a punishment. He wants it to.

“Make me.” Cause yeah, this game might even get you what you need.

“We are not having this conversation,” he puffs an annoyed, incredulity sound, hands buried in his eyes then picking at his hair.

And Rhage is there, keeping him away and quiet. And this strange kid, large as life, wild green eyes, plants himself in your path. You cock you head to the side, because this is too much, to feel both insulted by the young generation to not know your name, amused that he has the impression he can keep you away from Butch and proud to know this big pair of balls is what the Brotherhood still recruits.

“Rhage…” and it’s a warning, a _please teach him a “V’s not to be fucked with”_ crash course, while you incapacitate him in 5,6,7 different ways in your head – kudos to you and your revived planning skills – and Rhage comes near you two without a sound. His stance says grownup, but his face wears a _when the fuck did I get to be the one with reason, fuck, I’m old_ look.

 “It’s the _why_ I don’t get, you fuck! Why is this your business? Why do you still think any of this is your goddamned business,” Butch spits, gun in hand, waved as to point to himself and give you a heart attack.

“Yeah man…let us do our jobs,” green eyes says, all courage and soldier purpose and the space gets very very quiet and very very cold.

Three sets of eyes turn to him and you can swear a bush comes tumbling round pushed by wind on the other side of the room.

Rhage moves in slow motion. He takes the boy by the neck and rushes him out of your reach.

Your cop is right behind him.

“Fuck kid, did nobody teach you bonded male etiquette?” the blond whispers.

You catch the look on Butch’s face just as you hear the door smash against the wall and the warning in Qhuinn’s voice caries the sweet stench of lesser.

You have the vague thought that you should kiss him now. Or knock him senseless and carry him away. You can’t tell and it’s fucking terrifying. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to those who are still with me on this story. It's the final run and I wanted to say I truly admire you. I'm gratefull, because I, for one, cannot read a wip. So thank you again, I hope this is something new, different from my other bdb story and you'll get the feeling that it was worth to follow it.

“V, get your mojo on!” they shout and push.

 “Like yesterday, man, he’s anti vampire potpourri. No offense B.” Pushing you, still, closer to your cop, prepared as only you would take him: bathed in black blood, in sweet stench and showing so much grey skin they all unconsciously recoil.

“V! Light it up!”

And you shout back, with all you have _“I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”_

Undead blood drips continuously, coagulation a characteristics of the beating heart. A trail of black dots makes it impossible for you to hide from the world or from the night.

“Come on V. Do it. Heal him!”

 _“I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!”_ and you push away from him, shitkikers burning lines on the floor, because you can’t see it anymore. You can’t acknowledge it. The possibility.

Retching sounds also give out your location. Oh, the shouting too. But not yours, because, you realize, you said nothing all along, the No just a desperate movement of your head. 

“V, get the fuck over here! Vishous!!!”

The shouting dies down in the background. The blood dries in every single second of the minutes you are here. The sun comes faster than any car.

Nausea shuts them up. Maybe. Or maybe they still scream and pull at you, afraid to touch.

“I can’t heal him!”out loud this time. You think.

*

Sometimes the clothes would live through it.

You have time to get him undressed, clean and comfy. You have time to tremble at the thought of touching him. You have time to be embarrassed at the thought of getting hard near a passed out body. You have time to allow yourself to not care if you do.

Days when you are not alone when the healing begins and you are so fucking obvious, even in your own eyes.

Days when you were afraid you’ll not be there in time. Or enough.

Other times the doggens were kept busy the next day. Shopping for clothes and new carpets or furniture.  Either with urgency or desperation, you would not wait to take him close and set fire to the rest of the world. You had no time. And too much space. All those who say a bonded male feels the ultimate need to be inside their mate never knew _your_ need. The one that consumed clothes and carpets and furniture. The need that made him well and the doggens happy.

Sessions when you would bit someone’s hand when they wanted to remove him from you. And one when you bit him because you thought there’s no other way to bring him back. Or because you mistaken your dream with reality.

Healings that would consume you to the bone and you would mumble, like drunk, all the things you need to say to him, in the space between his jugular and earlobe, because it's like saying them to his blood.

To make him better meant to both make yourself whole and burn yourself every time.

The times when you remember nothing but the smell of his skin compete with those when you wake up to see Marissa there, watching you, for the worst of times.

*

You say nothing more as they haul you up and stuff you into the car, a dead weight and a dead looking cop.

The car coughs and rumbles, useless and cursed, a fitting metaphor for the state you’re both in.

Butch almost lost half his size, collapsed on the seats, the cold of the leather a small relief over the turmoil of Z’s driving.

“Why?” the designated driver asks, dark eyes catching your crazed look, in the mirror. He knows? Figured it out already?

“I thought it wasn’t relevant anymore,” you say back. It seemed irrelevant that you lost your light, when he would never fight again and you would never be allowed to touch him.

The back to the seat ensures your blood stops redecorating the floor. And really, it’s all you can give a fuck to do about it.

“It’s relevant to _him,_ ” Z says, not as the start of an argument, but just stating a fact. And something lurks in his tone, elusive as the thought of silence.

“Yeah,” you complete the breath and your hand moves to the body next to you. Your useless, normal, warm and shaking hand, over a body that asks for you, screams for you and for the first time, you can’t touch the way it needs. Nobody can anymore. And, according to you and absolutely no logic, nobody should.

It dawns on you then, in that precise moment, what this means.

“I shouldn’t be here.”

“His words precisely. But we still needed you in that fight. Could have been worse.”

You fail to see the scenario defined as “worse”; give up before you try. For some reason, you reformulate.

“No. Here for… _with_ him. He doesn’t want me near and now I can’t even…” and here it is, the ultimate bitching of an insecure male who never knew how to talk to someone else, to share, to ask or expect advice.

The look is back in the mirror, sharp and black as the truth.

“You’re raising his kid, man. He claimed you-“

“-to stop the rhite-“

“Just listen V! Fuck reasons. And fuck your glow stick. Learn a new trick. Should be the easiest thing in the world for you. And while you’re at it, fuck you, man. You say all this was for him? Cut the drama. Grow a pair and make him yours already. What’s stopping you now? It’s always an excuse with you, isn’t it? What are you afraid of now?!”

“That it was never like _that_ for him.”

“Jerking off to his picture made you blind, brother?” Z starts to counter; the need to do something other than think Butch might not make it so strong it fuels the fire even more. You cut it short.

“And also that he might not make it…”

A sigh, like an afterthought and Z presses the gas pedal harder, cold determination on his features. The cop is the pale one, but you both are the stone statues.

That is, until Butch starts to convulse and scream for you, like a replay of the initial torture he went through in the hands of the Omega.

*

It’s not the first time a night ends like this. His evil infected body making him scream for you and your light. They all know. They all allow it. Encourage it.

But they never see you when you argue.

When he’s not bad enough that he needs to be horizontal. When the evil makes him angry and unfair. When cursing and hitting, he runs and hides from all except you.

He doesn’t really need you when he only inhales one lesser. As the others still cringe away from his smell and the essence of evil, you follow, because you are called, because there is no other way.

_Why?_

You think about asking him in the most inappropriate moments. 

When sweat and blood smears the countertop as strangled growls turn into moans. Sounds like the soundtrack of a war, feels like resurrection, like breath released from hungry lungs.

_Why do we do this?_

When you are hungry for this very specific war. The one over who bleeds more, who inflicts more pain. And the underlying endgame of being driven to forgetfulness instead of madness.

_Why do we do this?_

When you lick your lips, because he punched you and blood tastes good when you imagine it’s his, now two shades away from black and you punch back, hungry and turned on, because with him hungry and turned on doesn’t need control and doesn’t involve disintegration.

_Why do we do this?_

When you feel him on you, the more he tiredly collapses over you with every punch, the more you want him, fear and anger chased away by waves of lust starting in your incomplete genitalia and tingling in your cursed hand, in your belly and in your parched mouth.

_Why do we do this?_

 You never kissed him. You should have. Every time.

Maybe that wasn’t the cure. But maybe it was the answer.

*

You don’t know when you reach the clinic. Manello is helpless when Butch seems dead.

“V!”

Payne can’t reach into the darkness for him when he begs.

You know, you made her touch him. You _forced_ her to touch him.

“V!”

You screamed at her and at them and somehow when you look, your hands are bloody and you fear, for a second, you relapsed into murder. And Butch screams.

“Please, make it stop,” he gurgles words as he retches, trembling like a disjoined puppet.

Mary comes and touches your back, brave, warm woman.

“Can someone please help him…” you say to whoever listens, all your body coiled beside his bed, a spring hardened into pain, gripping the sheets, disfigured by barely contained despair.

“Do you know how long this will last?”

You don’t, you don’t, there was never a choice to let him suffer as an experiment. You were there, cleaning him, bringing him back. You grab at your hair, soiled with black blood and sweat.

“When I wasn’t here…”

 “He never took in more than he knew he could handle on his own. But mostly we took the pale bastards out old style,” Rhage confirms. But now Butch screams and screams.

His cries reach you to the other end of the hallway where Phury tries to spoon feed you a Chosen, skin pale and soft and disgusting for you to even look at.

You don’t know how you got there. You don’t know when was the last time you fed.

“Vishous! Please don’t let it t-…take me!” you hear and your ears are burning, your heart is burning, your stomach too. Phury awkwardly supports your weight when the ground doesn’t feel so grounded anymore.

“V…we should get Ava here. Just in case-“

“I don’t know!” as you start walking back to the room, “I don’t know….” unsure fingers taking off layers of clothes and discarding them on the way.

“Vishous…”

The bed is too small for two, but you two had worse. Someone closes the door behind you, for privacy, or maybe to shut the sounds in, you couldn’t care less. Your hands feel alien as you caress him, as you take off the useless glove, worn by habit.

“Please!” he reaches for you still.

“I’m here. I’m here, hiraeth.”

_I can’t help you, but I’m here._

And you lay beside him, naked from the waste up, cradling his fully clothed body you can’t feed, heal or save. You should undress him too… but he bites hard on your hand against the pain, sounds residing into pained moans. The pull of the dark is unbearable. The stench. The panic.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…” with words on his skin, cold against warm. “I’m sorry”, not only for this but for all you are and did and never will do and couldn’t do.

The dam has collapsed and yes, it’s the chicken’s way out, to say it all when he can’t say anything back, but God, you can’t accept this silence anymore.

“Come back to me, please!”

The kisses come after words, of mixed with them, or instead of words. You kiss his neck, his hand, his brow, his eyes. And because you can’t accept the evidence of the pain anymore, you kiss his lips.

“I love you.”

*

The muffled laughter wakes you up. Something moves and sounds that shouldn’t exist slip inside your numb brain.

“Shh…come on baby girl! Just a little bit more sleep.”

The jump is so uncoordinated and so perfectly embarrassing, you end up against the wall, the impact a save and a fuck you wake up call at the same time.

“B…”

He looks at you. Ava looks at you too. She smiles. He doesn’t. But then does. They’re both so perfect it makes you cry. Or laugh. Or both.

To hell with caution. With what makes sense and bed side manners.

You catch his head in your hands and his surprised exhale cools your sweaty face.

“How?” asked close, close to his lips. Who do you thank, who did what you couldn’t, can’t? Does it matter? He’s awake and has the best kind of color, smells like himself and life and war and you really should cool down.

The hair you grab in your once cursed hand is maddeningly short. The second hand comes to dig its nails into the scalp, desperate for reality, for another kind of pain.

The kiss starts hungry, as a statement, but soon changes to languid and surrendered.

“Not now,” he breathes quietly and slowly, when you let him, a big hand covering, instinctively, the curious blue eyes of the little wonder.

And it’s not a No, it’s not a Fuck you and definitely not a Go away, because he hands you the bundle.

You kiss her head with the words left unsaid.

*

Later, in the Pit, after Ava is asleep in her crib, you replace his shadow and inhale his scent.

“You smell like me,” you say to his nape. Not proud and not guilty. Just saying it.

“Yeah.”

“Useless now, am I? Unless you need a new aftershave. And you really, _really_ don’t,” you smirk. He should punch you, cause it was cheesy. But you feel in the lines of your palm, now spread on his abdomen, slipped under his designers’shirt, under skin and flesh, he will not. Was your palm always there? Will you ever be ready to remove it? You both played too much with death and loss to not see what you have.

 “You should have told me,” he pushes lightly back and you force him closer, two immovable forces meant to collide.

“Story of my life, cop.”

“Tell me now, V,” and he’s not talking about how you lost your light and your powers.

“You’re mine…In my mind and in all that I am, you are mine,” you draw him closer, defeated but determined, supporting his still weak body, as he stands, back to you and watching his daughter.

 “I can’t heal you and I can’t read your mind,” you pull away, forcing yourself, “And I don’t have a better fragrance to cover you in, or anything else to give you,” and you walk, a step away, two.

“…but I never stopped wanting you to be mine and feeling that you should. Because I’m no one else’s.”

“V…”

The temperature of the air changes as you reach the door and step out into the hallway. Your room seems far away and yesterday feels like in another life. Again. So many lives, so many beginnings and ends, it’s like you’re cats, not vampires.

“You gave me _her._ ”

You turn to look at him and he’s right there, all the broken pieces of him that, incredibly, make this perfectly imperfect male you never once thought wasn’t all you ever wanted.

“No…she’s…mhm…she’s _all_. She’s yours.”

They look like a hallmark for happiness and serenity. Like something you shouldn’t see or disturb with your presence. Or your needs.

“She’s Marissas’s miracle.”

“Yes…” you give and then want to hide from the warmth in his eyes.

“She’s yours too,“ he whispers, coming closer to you.

 “What?”

The movements you forgot, he makes. Feels easy when he makes them.

7 steps and the tingling feeling you get when the sun is about to rise makes you look behind him, at the covered window.

 “Ava saved my life.”

5 steps and your heart double its size and you feel more alive than you were a moment ago.

“With your light, V.”

2 steps and …what were you thinking again?

 “She has your power to bring me back. To erase evil.”

No space between you.

“Butch…”

The kiss you gave he returns now. A ghost movement over your artery.

“So she’s yours too.”

Bright, honest eyes and …Your veins catch fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice that every chapter after 10 repeats the ending of the chapters before. ;)  
> More on hiraeth meaning: [here](http://www.smith.edu/kahninstitute/chronicle/spring2013/hiraeth.php)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this one with passion. Hope you do too.

Manello wants Ava for tests eventually. Miracle and all that. the miracle being her birth. “All that” is actually a list Havers sends and the Brotherhood doctor kindly ads to. It sounds like this:

The only vampire known to not have a preetrans stage. How?

The only – remaining – vampire to have the power of that strange light. where does it come from?

 The only vampire known to take a power from someone. Where is it stored?

And 137 more lines of interrogation about certain levels of her blood and organs.

So yeah, medical curiosity and possibly race evolution at stake, Manello

comes to ask…a little bit of blood.

 But Butch holds Ava. And Eva cries.

As a logical conclusion, badababoom, you give him a free face treatment, applying your own brand of day cream, Punch-U-UP. Until Payne comes and applies to you her own brand. Ouch. Better ouch you than boo boo Ava.

She laughs and they all leave the Pit, so all around, that went well.

*

“How did you save her?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I left that room thinking I lost everything.”

“I tried to save…”

“No. When I say everything, I mean you too, V.”

*

The war doesn’t stop because Ava has a tummy ache. 

Other times when, maddeningly, it doesn’t, are:

When the King doesn’t allow you to go out on the field with Butch – so what if you’d rip the head off everyone getting near him, you thought the whole point of the war was to rip heads off.

“V, look me in the glasses and tell me you truly know who the enemy is when it gets to his safety.”

“Fine, pair him with Rhage. Or Z. Or Phury. I trust _them_.”

“Well sure V, I live to serve. Anything else? While I’m well and prepared for you to fuck me?”

“No, thank you,” an honest thank you and Wrath knows it, because there’s only ever Rhage or Z smelling like his blood sometimes.

When there’s a game on and you try to get the cop to stay, trump it with Ava on the floor in front of the TV, playing, dressed in the most adorable (Mary’s pick-you understand nothing of the cat videos so adorable is kinda not your field) costume aaand you, seemingly oblivious, ask, casually, holding an amber glass of Lagavulin and a clear one.

“I’ll bet you 10 the reds win by half time.”

“I’m on rotation.”

“Call in sick.”

And he looks at you in a certain way that reminds you too much of the past so you just leave the scotch glass and ignore him after that, already collecting Ava from the floor.

“Who’s hungry?!” as you launch her into the air and she laughs and laughs.

“Don’t get my baby addicted to Grey Goose.”

“My glass has water, cop,” ‘cause you know _that_ much about babies that you don’t go about pouring alcohol and junk food into your system and the blood she feeds on.

He knows you know, because there’s a smile on his lips as you flip him off and he’s out the door. What he doesn’t know is that you keep your blood clean because he doesn’t like Goose either.

The war never stops. There’s no deity there to oversee your side, and it’s easier for the other side to get their troops. The Brotherhood  has to train them. The others just have to kill theirs.

The war should stop.

At least when Ava is running a fever and they barge into the Pit and you look, helpless, angry, as they put him down, covered in black and red and lines that weren’t there before.

“V…can you get her? He only got two but…” and Rhage already retreats to the door, hands up in defense and an innocent face, sorry bright in neon, like his eyes.

“No, V…,” is all he manages as you bring her to him and watch from outside how his dirty skin and dirty insides are light up only by her presence.

The first time you tried, she burned your hands as you held her on his chest. As soon as she made contact with his skin, she started to glow. It was amazing and heartbreaking at the same time. Because, like you did, she took him all. A bubble of two, a separate world, where you can’t reach. It’s how you learn the meaning of saudade*.

Couple that with the times your cop needs to feed and a Chosen is presented to him for after the healing and you can almost understand why wars never stop.

 It’s because if it wouldn’t exist, you would start one in that moment. Senseless and without meaning or cause in the eyes of the others. And in the whole world, that’s how wars are started. Because every day at least one feels it inside his being and can’t hold it in.

*

“Don’t be afraid…don’t be afraid, please, don’t be afraid.”

The motion of the kiss is completed with a half sigh, with a hand half trapped, half begged to stay by the one covering it.

“I’m not afraid.”

And of course you said it out loud. And of course he isn’t afraid, stubborn as you know him, but he also is, because his hand stays, but trembles and his eyes are not shut, they’re squeezed shut.

“Look at me…”

“V…I can’t do this…”

“You’re not _. I_ am.” _And I’m afraid for the both of us_ , but you don’t say that out loud. You hope.

*

All the things that add up to lists why you should not do this are completely forgotten the moment it all starts, replaced by lists and list of things that amount to the inevitability of it.

His pristine shirt you want ripped and crumbled in your fists.

The way he reads The three little pigs and his wolf has a Boston accent you want to suck out of his mouth.

The way it’s so much dangerous for you to have him than not have him. You lived for more than 7 centuries with not having him and more than 50 years having him near and not having him, but the idea of taking him brings you to your knees, like it did when you actually took him and no one can be allowed to have that much power over you.

The signs of danger are all there.

How you forget to look away, hide and try to be “normal”, how he can get things from you without asking. How you don’t even consider saying NO and you realize that so you start to make lists of things you would still say no to.

One: Go away – too late for that, sorry cop, there was a time when that was possible and even came to happen, but not anymore.

Two: …hm, you were sure there was a second item on this list. Fuck, there must be more than one. Oh yeah, you remember: “Fuck me!” You’d say No to that.

It’s an old item on an older list, but you were always sure you would say no. Right? Sure, cause better decide to say No to something that can never happen anyway and better to repeat it thousands of times, just the no, better than to imagine him asking it, or, worse, imagine yourself asking it, or giving into it.  Better you saying no than him saying yes and God…the monster in you would destroy him, his religion and his belief and every choice he ever made.

You’ve got it so bad you’d fuck the life out of him, replace it with yours. You like him too much the way he is, so this is, without a doubt, one thing you’ll always say No to.

Unless, of course, the words are preceded by _Please._

*

“Why did you leave?”

“To keep you alive.”

“Bullshit. Then why… take me…you know...”

“Why taste you?”

“Yeah. After all that time.”

“To keep _myself_ alive.”

“Pretty sure Europeans have cock.”

“Oh, I took what I needed cop. Blood and sex and kills. But I did it all with your taste in my mouth.”

*

It makes you laugh, how much you waited and how much your life is like in some soap operas you find on when Layla babysits Ava.

Tonight Ava is in the mansion, Nalla giving the motherhood status a test drive, making Z faint every two seconds.

Butch comes back after midnight and he looks better, more rested and more relaxed than you. His eyes find you and he smiles, a secret code to something you can’t decipher. Yet. 

“Everything alright?” he asks as the heavy leather jacket makes a loud thump on the couch and you have to stop yourself from saying he should get that and put it on the hanger. Fuck, you’re a house wife. And you rub at your face and at your hair – when did it grow so much? – all the while pinned in one place.

“Vishous…” cautious, like you’re the one with PTSD. Maybe you are.

“I…”

“Where’s Ava?”

“With Nalla. She’s fine.”

“Ok, so…”

But you don’t let him finish. You may have one ball, but it is…was…demigod ball, blue from the moment you dreamed of you two intertwined. He doesn’t expect apologies anymore, you shouldn’t be afraid to try.

You cage him against the door, arms on both sides of his big body.

“Can I do this?” eyes bowed, because you would absolutely back off if he says No and fuck that, you decided this wouldn’t be the first question.

“Gave this some thought, hm?”

Is it a joke? Repulsion? Rejection? You look up and he’s amused and it stings just as much. So you push on the wall and get away from his face. Or so you plan. He catches your left arm. Always could.

“What made you think I wanted you?” the question punches the air out of your sternum and the clothes feel restrictive and much like a straightjacket.

“When?”

“The first time you thought I did. Start with the beginning,” and he lets go, lifts the jacket from the couch, hangs it by the door. Pushes his booth off, hazel eyes pressing you to talk.

“The…way you reacted to drinking my blood.”

“Biological. Manny says it happens.”

 “Fuck that. I gave you some of me and I was making love to you through blood. It was my first time.” You need a glass of something strong. You give up half way to the kitchen, seeing him taking off his knives.

”Fine. Will you find a reasonable explanation for everything I say?”

The knives make a soothing sound as they fall to the granite floor.

“I’m trying to tell you something, V.”

“So just say it.”

“Nah,” he tsk’s. “You always loved a good puzzle.”

“I hate puzzles.”

“A challenge then,” and palming the last knife, he comes to you, so close the plan falls to pieces and your one steel ball is likely shriveling and will definitely fall down. When did he become this? This god you’d have no problem going to your knees again? When did you stop being one?

The knife stays, blade cold, on the inside of his wrist, and he’s the one cornering you now, a step, another, until there’s no more room and no more air.

“When did you know I wanted you? I know when _I_ knew you wanted me. I know when I realized _how_ you wanted me. I know when you marked me.”

He inhales close to your ear, like doing a line of coke from your skin. And you deliver, the scent exploding into his senses, on command.

“I know when you gave up on your want. I thought it was incredible. I knew nothing of vampire biology and so much about you I actually believed you’re smart and powerful and evolved enough you can mark someone else and chose another mate. I know when I was relieved.”

“Cop…”

“Shh… I know when I wanted to…try you, naked and in front of the entire Brotherhood. To let myself be possessed. You did that to me. Once or twice. Made a sinner out of the catholic old me.”

He smirks. Kisses your eyes and whispers something that sounds like “loved your burning eyes” but can’t be that, cause it sounds like poetry and regret. And he leaves you, walking slowly down the corridor to… _your_ room.

“But what I’m really asking, what I really want from you is to tell me when did _you_ know I can be sinful, as my religion would see me, and change my entire life of straight choices, wet pussies and full breasts, even for one moment with your mouth?”

Fuck this game. You know, you always knew. Knew he wanted you, but couldn’t accept to want you, like you wanted him and couldn’t deem yourself worthy to claim him. Maybe too little too late, but you know this.

It was when he came after you, when he imprinted his nails in your thighs at the induction, when he came in your arms, driven over the edge by your taste, when he trapped you in chains and healed you instead of fucking you. When he kissed you and when he let you suck him.

“If I knew it would take this long …”

“I know your goddamn answer Butch.”

He stops. Back to you. Barefoot, owning the space he fills and absolutely vibrating. His hands disappear in front and you can’t see what he does.

“I never knew you wanted me. I still don’t, cop. But I also knew. Always knew...hoped.”

“And why is that? Why is it so hard to know?”

You breathe out. Understanding. Cursing.

“You never told me. I took what you gave. Maybe even a little more. I told you what I felt. I showed you. But I never asked _you_.”

You see him open his black shirt and for a moment he’s like a black angel with spread wings. And then the shirt falls.

“Ask me now.”

On his back, just under the name that carries two S-es you yourself cut, stands written a name you never once thought could make a skin more beautiful. It’s red and black and it must have bled like hell. And you could kill those who made it. But also…you could forgive them.

The letters move, alive, like his skin, like the muscles under it. Incredible, perfect, defining.

VISHOUS

The change in you is sudden, complete and the same as your future: inescapable.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>    
> saudade* - a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you imagine first try at sex between an emotionally scarred vampire and a catholic irish straight ex human would look like?

At first, there is the silent sensation of submersion, quiet sensory shock of skin on skin and unheard contact. The reality of skin that covers a live being, but holier, so much more present and altogether _more_. His skin is soft, a different kind of soft, but the muscles tremble, strung tight as a bowstring and hard, the right kind of hard.

“What do you want?” you catch up with him on the door step, already naked from the waste up. Here’s to wishful thinking, but your skin asks for his skin and there’s no return from that.

You’re placing the tips of your fingers on his back, penetrate with blunt pads the wounds until he opens his mouth. “To not feel like a teenager, for once,” Butch whispers and you smile, tongue on the letters on his back, because you’re almost 800 years old and he’s the oldest human in history, but you’re both virgins.

“I will worship you.”

You drag your hand across his ribs, playing his body, the fleshed bone of his hip, down, to the nervous sweat on lower stomach, the tantalizing v shape muscle that makes you swallow every time. 

„I’m going to show you,” you caress him, a movement so alien in your life it makes you sad. “I want you to want it, cop. I need to know you accept it. And you like it. And if you don’t, I’ll have you any way you’re able to give yourself to me.“

“What about you, V?”

He’s so warm and buzzing with built up want, you collapse your forehead on his back and you don’t know which one of you is running a fever, but your exhale burns with slow curses or prayers dedicated to him.

“I imagined this only for you Butch. Only _with_ you...”

 “Yeah. And I’m asking what about _you_?”

“I have enough if you say yes.”

Your hand doesn’t stop, moving lower, to his navel.

“But you need to know what you’re getting into.”

Lower, to the belt, he’s pliable, smooth; lacking the coarseness of pubic hair you’ve seen and felt in the human males you had. Nothing like this though, nothing in the entire world or the course of 8 centuries like this. Your mouth starts to salivate as you have his clothed penis under your fingers and it’s growing, blood pumped into it. The image of pumping makes you dizzy.

 “I know you want me.”

Small tentative touches, until he’ll say yes and he will, your name in his back, not a punishment, a choice, because no one can force him to do something he doesn’t want. Never could. Let them try now.

“But this is going somewhere else entirely.”

Your mouth on his shoulder, fingers raking down his front, Goosebumps changing the texture, you’ll never forget to ask, but once he’ll answer, he’ll never forget how you take when you take _him_.

“So tell me. What do you want to do?”

“I wa…”

“Say it, Butch.”

“I want you to show me what it means to be with you.”

You don’t need to know when he started to wonder about you, maybe seeing you push inside the core of that that masked female sub, maybe having your naked body under his palms, no air between you two, but two hard-on’s at the induction. And maybe he hadn’t been able to imagine himself actually touching, taking, wanting.

Yes, watching, maybe, curiosity, like you watched him, but the need to touch has to be acknowledged, deep, in the marrow and at the root of your cock, when it swells at the thought of it deep inside flesh that isn’t yours.

“I’m an animal. You know how I fuck.”

You’re not going to say otherwise. You’ll have him on his knees, gagged and tied, skin bleeding, rocking and scraping his skin on the ground, fucked into oblivion and bitten raw.

But only when and if, only if, he says yes.

“But that isn’t for you. Not yet.”

“How far would you take this, V? Tonight,” and he turns to look at you, as called by the image you conjured, making you wanna scream, because the image of having him back to you is one step closer to your dream destination and, hand on heart, you will never get enough of his new branded back.

“We’ve been dancing this dance for a long time, seems to me. Fuck Vishous…it’s wasn’t right, but we did,” the _we_ accentuated by his thumbs pressing behind your ears, on both sides of your face.

“This doesn’t have to lead to something,” and you’re bending his spine along the doorjamb mussing his hair as he’s shaking his head, hand pressing on your chest, the pads of his fingers as hot as his scalp.

“Come on, V. We’re way passed that. You even planned it, for fucks sake. And I showed you. I’m telling you. I want this. But man, you have to lead the way from here,” he resigns his forehead on your shoulder, pushing you back, towards the bed.

“You gonna stab me if I lead you astray, cop?”

He stops and raises his left hand, a dagger, one of yours, a black extension, standing there, in his palm, permanently cold and sharp and perfectly balanced.

“Oh…No. This is to carve my name on your back. If you want me.”

You stop. You stare.

You go into his mouth like you’d go into battle. Fully aware, with purpose, dedication and finally - fucking finally – you inhale.

Inhale, exhale… you’re in love with him. It’s okay, it’s fine, and he’s in love with you, it’s just fine…

“Yes. God, yes. Now,” starting to turn your back, who’d have thought it’s this easy to make you present it, willing, eager even and completely trusting?

“Hold on,” he stops you, smiling and then not smiling. “What if this…this doesn’t …you know…work, with me. The sex I mean…” 

 “Cause I’m such an expert, right?” as you’re sliding your fingers along the groove between his shoulder blades, careful on the cuts, even if they’re healed, more vicious down his spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, like counting years you’ve waited for this. It wouldn’t be enough of them.

“I’ve never had a man…male,” he says, not exactly kissing your skin, but not exactly just talking, so maybe he does it to wet your skin, because you know what and who he had, screwed, fucked, took and he should just kiss you and shut up.

“I’ve never had _you_ ,” as if it’s a miracle and it is, as if it’s a dream and it isn’t, so you turn, push him on the bed, crawling over him as he moves up the covers, dipping your head down to his chest, right above the pink nipple growing eager towards your lips.

“I can feel you want me. We’re going to see what you can take and what you can give.”

Because he’s the straight one, but you’re the emotionally scarred one, so this will be interesting to figure out.

He lets a curse drip out of his mouth, his southie accent doing perverse things to your one and only testicle. He hisses when you circle the creased skin and then suck on it. It’s a distraction, because you undo his zipper and when you go down on him to get off the leathers, inhaling the scent down there, and he arches, like his muscles decide all at once to respond and lock in ON position.

*

You’ll fuck taking turns at having and giving up control.

You’ll forget the camp and the meaning of possessing another body your father taught after enough gentle fingers push inside you, and breathless _I love you_ ’s beg as you’re stretched to the limit, filled and completed. 

He’ll discover ways to control you even when he bottoms, because he rides you, taking you to the hilt, tight and hot, but fucking you with his tongue until you scream his name so hard is like you reclaim your soul every time.

You’ll fuck hard and you’ll fuck slow, because you’re Alfas, prime warrior males, but you’d stop the orgasm half way on the pipe if the other would say Stop. 

He’ll give you pain. That special brand of pain that harms your body to tame your demons. And you’ll suck, scrape, tie, blow, push, burn, bite, never having to say sorry.

You’ll fuck to forget the days when you only longed.

And you’ll fuck to remember them.

*

He’s lying on his back with his legs spread open. Naked. You sit in between them, on your haunches, looking quietly over his naked body until his cock does an obscenely salute move. He tries to cup his penis.

You remove his hand and place it on your crotch to feel the damp seep through your pants, your briefs, and then you lick his fingers, smelling yourself over him.

„Never hide from me.”

„Brave thing to say when you look like you’re winning at poker.”

Cause you forgot about yourself, didn’t you, and your lack of completeness, your scared genitalia, feeling even more as less facing his perfect length and sack and skin.

„I got to tell you something,” kissing the corner of his mouth, covering him, a too calculated plan in a too unpredictable, unexpected situation.

„Oh God. You’re a she,” he looks straight at you, those warm hazels, that smile, part wicked, part unsecure, and he touches your face with so much presence that you can no longer say you’re imagining this.

He smiles, it’s contagious, starts to laugh, you follow and just like that, you know each other again. Your whole history between you, in the static that makes your skin alive.

“I want to kiss you again.”

“So kiss me.”

“Not on your mouth.”

“Oh…” he stares. “ _Oh…”_

“It’s not a diversion. I will tell you what you need to know. But it’s not urgent. And having you like this is the only way I know how to ease you into …“

“Homosexuality?”

“Into me. Because you can always say stop. Anything you can’t take, say stop.”

“What if I can’t take you talking shit and not kissing me? On the mouth first? “

*

Someday, you’ll have him tied in chains to the wall in your Penthouse. Wax dripping along with blood on his front. Cum following. Rivulets of black and red and white on saliva glistening paths.

He’ll have you on your knees, wanting, tears on your face, even if you’re the unchained one, pushing yourself into something cold and hard on the floor to fuck your own needy hole and choking on his warm, receding cock, balls deep into your throat.

*

 “I want to feel you.”

And he says yes, you slide up along his body until your faces are inches apart, but more igniting, your now free cock is sliding up against his own skin, smooth but unmistakably male.

You’re naked too.

“This is how cock feels on skin. I’m not a female. Can I show you more?”

“Yes,” said breathlessly into your hair, arms curling around you as you curl your tongue around his fingers, taste buds invaded by need.

“Are you gonna come?” you ask, bucking your hips forward as you ask, uncontrollable at the thought, nerves lit and voice foreign.

“Do you want me to?”

You barely started. You’re dragging him into a rhythm, swallowing his fingers and releasing them. He follows, shoves them between your lips to the palm, nearly cutting your air supply, and his eyes flutter shut.

You start molding him like dough.

The sound he makes is illegal in several countries in public and in others even in private, the way he catches on the right moves is inexplicable, unbelievable when he’s slow fucking your mouth with his fingers, while cupping your chin and pushing his ass up, pubic bone tearing into you.

“I’m gonna lose my shit when you come, cop.”

 You almost collapse on him, sweaty and needy, and he thinks that you’re going for another kiss. He likes that. You love it.

You kiss everything _but_ his lips.

Lick everything _but_ his length.

„I want to suck you again-„

„No, I don’t know if it’s bla-„

„Fuck! I don’t care about that. But if I _do_ suck you, even if you look at me, even if you see me between your legs, running my tongue over your balls, tasting sweat and the musky taste that’s you, even if I pull your cock and balls up to lick the underside…”

And you stop talking to spit on your hand, then follow the narrative with wet fingers, as he clutches the sheets above his head and your skin.

“…even if I look you in the eyes as I pull your catholic cock’s foreskin back to completely bare the head…,”

He moans then, a drip of precum pushed out on his abdomen. You want to lick it.

“…and tongue the slit…”

 You do lick it. You feel like a god again, being able to do what you want.

“…you can still mistake me for someone else.”

He looks at you, confused, panting, and you watch him back, greedy but satisfied, the long stretch of him before you, the tightening muscles near his hole, the flushed seeping cock, his beautiful, dirty mouth. 

“Then how...”

You fist the cock around the shaft, hard, and burry a third of a finger in him. His body twitches, balls moving, rising, contracting, every movement feels like a male’s. This is not how masturbation feels like. You know he knows. And no woman took him like this, close to pain, dangerously close.

“I’m going to make you push your fingers inside me like you pushed them inside my mouth. And pump me with your hand as I bite into your neck and draw blood. Because you’re _mine_.“

He contracts, the movement of the universe before coming into existence, digs his nails in you and comes, comes, comes, in short and pulsing beats inside your first.

“And I’m made for you,” you nuzzle him, your smell covering him and taking new nuances. He’s still bucking against you, riding it and you keep him there, facing you, pressing down with your entire body, a hand painfully mingled in between your bodies, working your ready, slick length.

When you’re done and you’re there fast, you surrender on him; not even half the things you planned accomplished but fuck that. There’s time.

*

Later, you wake up from the best sleep of your life. Turning to the side, your left arm tingles. Not from being movement deprived, but because the burst of extra blood from your heart confuses it. Happiness feels like a heart attack. Who would have thought?

And it tastes like the inside of his wrist, you decide. And yeah, it does, as you press your tongue to the ridges and valleys under his big palm, white and pink and blue and purple, mapping them in saliva, feeling his heartbeat from this other important vein. 

“Hey.”

“Mwhey,” you say back, like an _I’m here, thank you for not jumping out, off, leaving me._

The private moment you had alone with his pulse told you what you needed. That happiness sounds like a constant rhythm heard through your lover’s skin.

“I fell asleep.”

“Mhmm.”

“It’s late. You don’t have my name on you. Aaaaand Vishous…you’re a bed hog.”

“Aaaand I take it from your tone we’re officially married.”

“Shut it. You owe me, V.”

“My life,” you say getting on your back, stretching and feeling, after a lifetime of just not being entirely there, that you belong.

“Pass the phone.”

You do. No question.

“Time to get our baby home. Unless…you know…we can…you wanna…”

You give him a kiss, lapping and sucking briefly on his fingers, one for everything you loved in his sentence:

the familiarity of it

 the perfect _our_ he slipped without noticing

 the word _home_

 the thought that soon you’ll feel his blade

 the way he was asking you if it’s ok to postpone it

Five kisses for 13 words. You like that ratio. Maybe you can keep it. For life.

You get up and throw your legs over the side of the bed and stay there, smiling over your shoulder.

“Nah, we’re old. I’m _yours._ You have bad handwriting-“ he punches you hard, then reaches a palm, stops and reaches all the way, just touching your skin. He’s picturing it. His name on you. It makes your heart beat faster so you get up and pull your briefs on.

 “There’s time. Get her here,” because you’re scared of what his name on you would do if this leaves you breathes.

“OK. Texting Z....”

“And besides, I only need 5 minutes to make you cum and another 1 to clean you. So I’ll make do on some of that debt.”

“Cocky aren’t you?” he laughs under his breath, fingers punching in the message as you go on his side of the bed – fuck, _his_ side – and start to kiss his abs.

“No, this is just very very real after a very very long time. And scratch that. It’s gonna take 3.”

 “You better start then. You have 10. And don’t worry, I’ll look at you, V. I’ll know it’s you.”

“Fuck, cop.”

He throws away the phone and pulls on strands of your hair, getting your eyes at level with his.

“Yeah, why did I say? Try to keep up. 9 minutes… _wife_ ,” he smirks and you make him choke on it as you take him in all the way.

Sending…sending…Sent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was it close to what you imagined? Let me know.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter I wanted to include you all in the story, with them. You'll know it when you'll read it. Tell me if you liked it. ;)

After that first night together _, together,_ you can describe him to a sculptor so that it could do a perfect replica. The dimple at the bottom of his spine, you’ll have to fill somehow, someday, maybe today, the half hooded hazels after the climax, rib by rib, the tattooed lines you do every year for his sister, for him, the scar of your name and the scar of his infection, the way his T-shaped navel with a little flap of overlying skin fills with sweat or saliva when you take your time. Man…you really got it bad.

After that night you don’t hate your name anymore. And you want him naked a lot.

*

When the others see you, they know. Like they knew you wanted him, but not how much. To be honest, you should lack all senses not to know. Because his skin smells of you and his eyes react to everything by finding your eyes and you alone stand as if you’re two persons, not one.

Oh, and because your mouth does that thing where it curls the corners up from time to time. So basically, it’s like in the beginning, 50 years ago. Except he knows now. And has your name on him. Yeah, it’s bullshit and a matter of pride and stupid ritual, but fuck if it isn’t a turn on and a promise. It makes you his more than it makes him yours. It’s not a matter of property. It’s a matter of life. He gave you life, therefore has you written on him.

“So… ” in the silence, Rhage can’t help himself, of course. “I see you liked the vicious handiwork - pun intended,” and he blows on his nails and polishes them, proud and beaming, leaning on the fireplace in Wrath’s study. “When do I do you? Soon I hope, while I have the advantage of practice?”

Butch almost chokes on his water; he starts to laugh, full and wholeheartedly. You let someone else explain the unfortunate innuendo to an oblivious Hollywood and you go next to your cop.

“Should we tell them now?”

“Fuck no…I’m curious who else here is eager to do ya’.”

*

_I want you in me, I do, but I don’t know if I can after what my father made me watch and do, please, please show me how to be with you._

He does.

*

“Your tattoo...is it going to stop growing?”

“I think it will now.”

“What does it say? Still not fluent in this,” and he touches your skin, the line between unmarked skin and black ink.

You’d disagree, because he’s fluent in you. The way he touches you, knowing where to hurt and take, but also when to be so careful to drive you mad.

“It says I’m a genius and that I have this great trick with my tongue-“

“Come on, man. I’m serious.”

You kiss him. You take his hand. Guide it on your body, chest to abdomen to groin. 

“What I can see says I’ll kill and destroy. And that I’ll bring death as I see it in my unnatural visions. That I’m an abomination and no one can have he without feeling my dark curse.”

Butch smiles, cups your sack, squeezes and leans down to kiss.

“So it tells the truth.”

You smile. “Fuck you, cop.” But it’s more like a _fuck me_ and you already arch into the feeling of his lips, tentative, still tentative, on your sensitive skin.

“I guess you’ll have to teach me how to read this. Cause I bet there’s something in here that says you only kill the undead and evil, that you bring death to an end and give life and my name on your back will show someone has you, even _after_ he felt your healing light.”

“You say the nicest things,” and a moan escapes you, because he does say the nicest things, even when his mouth is full of you.

“It’s only because I want to get into your pants.”

“Mhmmm. You’re forgiven.”

“I ain’t asking for forgiveness, V.”

But later, when you get out of the shower, he stands on the side of the bed, your bed and that damn look is back on his face. The one he had on when Marissa would ask him to accompany her to an official dinner. The one he wears even when his clothes are worth thousands and he looks like millions. The undeserving look you hated more than his sickly pale, infected, powerless one.

“Butch…”

He looks up and away, then down and it’s giving you headaches. Stomach burns. Heart arrhythmia. Love’s a bitch.

“Was it…you know…good?”

You stare and freeze and rewind. The touching and licking, the blowjob, the warning, the friction and semen on your rock hard stomach. Bliss. But then it hits you. How you walked out of bed immediately after, how the kiss was short, how your bonding scent isn’t covering him.

His first time. Fuck, his first time taking you.

So you attack. You bite him. Hard. And with his blood on your lips and frenzy in your veins, you say it to his face. Just once, to be clear, even if for you the actual words mean so little compared to what you feel and are prepared to give.

“I love you.”

He smiles then, so hard you think his face will break and kisses you back, keeping you in his lap, close to him, as the perfect scent of Obsession for Men invades your pores.

“Show off…” but you’re lost already, so happy you mirror his smile and nuzzle at his neck, helpless and at home.

“Told you, V. Horrible bedside manners.”

“Why don’t you teach me then?”

 “Oh, I will. We’ll start with cuddling.”

“Sounds painful.”

But it isn’t. And sometime later, when your spend bodies decide on their own who holds who, he whispers into your unmarked shoulder.

“Just so you know, I love you too. Now would you please let me put my name on your back?”

From sleepy to full force bonding, your pheromones agree to his request before your words do.

“So that’s a yes?”

“It was yes from the day I knew I wanted nothing else,” but you don’t say for how long that is.

“And Vishous…you were wrong. You can give me something better than my bonding scent. You smell like belonging and I don’t feel like an impostor wearing you,” and he pulls you closer, every bit of skin in contact with him.

*

Oh…and your mother is not dead.

“You were powerful, my son, but not that powerful.”

“What I was is dead and left behind. So if you want to end me, tell me, because I can’t read your mind.”

“Writing poetry now?”

“Nah, it’s rap. Look it up on my channel. It’s out since a second ago, and it already has 1 view. Comment and subscribe. ”

She looks at you strangely, head cocked to the side and then she does that thing where she denies you hate. She giggles. You don’t know for how long. Enough for Ava to wake up, hungry.

“Why are you here?”

“To offer a present for the Dhestroyer’s and …your daughter.”

“Something like you gave me? Or Payne?”

“No.”

And she presents three birds, one white, one blue and one golden. Ava is fascinated immediately. And then falls asleep, smiling, when the birds sing.

The Scribe Virgin doesn’t wait for thank you’s. She knew you well. Only that this time, you would have said it.   

*

“Are you really smoking that?”

“Fuck no. But I’ll suck on it nonetheless.”

Because your arms tremble and Ava looks at you lovingly, her beautiful pale blue eyes grounding you in this moment. And she’s quiet. You wish she would make some sounds. Just enough to cover your labored breathing.

“You sure you wanna hold her through this?” Rhage asks, more likely to distract you than to make sure. He sits at level with your kneeling form and sucks on a tootsie roll. “Can I at least make the R and the H in it?” again, to distract you.

You’re not distracted.

And Butch gets to the middle of your back, his hand more steady than yours. Thank whatever God.

“Man, shut your mouth before I reconsider you being the godfather of my baby later at the baptism.”

 “Mary, what’s a godfather?”

“Well honey, it’s like a second dad,” but you growl and Mary giggles, covering her mouth and rectifies “or a third dad, in this case.”

So Rhage looks at Butch and you know what he sees there, you stared into your cop’s openness before and you see the mountain of a vampire melt, cave in and refill with pure joy. He looks at you them, those incredible electric blues, as you smirk…and he ruins the moment, pure Hollywood style.

“V, I get that you wanted him to carve _all_ the letters, but it’s taking forever man. We still have a bat…baptism to do. So suck it up and ask him to hurry.” And he stands up, embraces his shellan and taps taps taps his heel on the wall. 

Some roll their eyes, some eyes hold tears.

Butch doesn’t stop, like his whole purpose is to get it done and perfect. For all you care, he could just put an x there. You would know.

Z looks at you from the corner, silent, Bella next to him, his eyes golden and knowing.

“I get that COP is a bit strange to stay on your back, but at least he should’ve gone with the five lettered – Butch- ,” Phury states and Butch pauses after the T and kisses your skin. The blood seeps into your leathers. Peace seeps into your heart.

“I said the same to Wrath. Waste of breath,” the other over 9 letters name carrier in the room, Beth, offers and you have the power to smile, because before he starts again, Butch comes near your ear and whispers.

“Shut it, I know you like this for more than one reason.”

His voice raises the hairs on your nape and warms your belly. Want and pride and … love.

 “It had to be Dhestroyer. Because he made me.”

Yeah, complete and utter love.

*

 “V…Where’s Jane?”

The old you would have said “Shut up and fuck me”, offering something close to pain, just to erase everything or would demand, without words, to be left alone.

This you told him everything you did in those 14 months when you were away.

“It’s okay,” he said after, stroking your sides and your face. But you saw his sadness and you just wished he doesn’t blame himself. And after you wished it, you told him, because you can say things to him. Always could.

“Don’t blame yourself.”

He kissed your lips and slowly shaken his head, then snuggled under your chin and went to sleep.

You forgave yourself then, even if you never thought you should.

*

_They feed like they fight, muscles moving like snakes under their glistening skin. They feed out of me, but they feed like they love, I hear, only one another, like two halves, hungry and desperate and almost, almost there._

_“Ahhh”_

_As soon as the sound is out, a hand covers my mouth and the wetness of it is the wetness I feel down below. I wish they could touch me there instead. But I am here only to witness._

_One mouth takes blood as the other takes flesh and eyes close to marvel at the taste of semen, not the nourishment I offer._

_Strong chests support me and I am bathed in sweat and delicious smell of possession. And I can imagine, if I could reach down, I can …_

_“Ahhh…”_

_The hand is back, fingers fill me and this unearthly pair of blue rimed diamond eyes fixate me…but look beyond me, for a second. The heat consumes me and something inside my belly contracts, sounds so hard to push out, and I want, I want…_

_“NnnAhhh…”_

_The other touches the face of this godlike male and the expression changes, the fingers leave me, not asked, more like begged._

_There is darkness in this bed and there is light, fear, so unexpected from warriors like them. Their hands roam and squeeze, nails draw blood to be licked and spread over hardened parts that fascinate me, that never touch me._

_They say words to each other, tongues drawing them in saliva. And when one releases my wrist, I want to implode, skin collapsing in on itself, until the other penetrates me in the same places, and I need, I need, I…_

_“Ah…ah…”_

_The bodies coil, rising and collapsing, sounds and heat and-_

_“Let me have you all inside me, every drop, I’ll let you take it back, all of it, even if it’s useless, please take only me.”_

_“Aaaaa…”_

_The words carry me over as the warrior at my wrist licks the wound closed and attacks the other’s jugular, a perfect bite repaid with a content sigh._

*

Ava is 10. She’s playing.

She runs after her birds.

 The birds lead her outside.

The doors close and the sun rises.

You stop existing.

Lassiter appears inside and takes your cop into his arms, laughing maniacally.

“She still runs after those damn birds, man. She runs in sunlight like it’s nothing.”

From then on, the angel takes her shopping for the things you never approve of.

*

The things going through your mind as you die.

Watch your back, Butch – I hope the shot didn’t ruin his name on my back - I’m proud of you, cop - This sucks but then again, it was bound to happen-How the fuck could your forget the vision about your own death?-It’s obvious your time has come when death hurts less than your joints – It was a good life - Who can you thank for you being first to go – ‘cause he’s the stronger one – that daylight effects neutralizing agent you developed is not nearly complete, so it’s not like you have unfinished business – that Sox game was amazing, Ava holding the Pad, you in the Pit - unless you consider kissing him a perpetual unfinished business – him and baby Ava – the night when he came to the mansion for the first time – Butch - I’m happy.

“Cop…”

“V…”

“Join me on the other side when it’s time and don’t make me fight for you there, too.”

“Never again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After 1 year, exactly, I post the last chapter of this fic. To those who were here every step of the way - again, I can't see how you do it, following a WIP - I hope it deserved your nerves and to those who read it when it is complete, hope it deserved your time.  
> Thank you all.


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